


































> 

























FRANK R. STOCKTON 

Volume III 

RUDDER ORANGE 













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i 








THE NOVELS AND STORIES OE 
FRANK R. STOCKTON 


RUDDER GRANGE 



. . l NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1899 

cvW' 





TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 

Library of Cott^reevy 
Office o f the 

Utui41«9<) 

Register of Copyrights 


A 



Copyright, 1879, 1899, by 
Charles Scribner’s Sons 


M tO 

"33 a*. I 


ft VS, 
4%<S^ 




THE DEVINNE PRESS. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

i Treating of a Novel Style of Dwell- 

ing House 3 

ii Treating of a Novel Style of 

Boarder 19 

in Treating of a Novel Style of Girl 27 

rv Treating of a Novel Style of Burg- 
lar 38 

v Pomona Produces a Partial Revolu- 
tion in Rudder Grange . . 49 

vi The New Rudder Grange . . .58 

vii Treating of an Unsuccessful Broker 


and a Dog . . . . . 72 

viii Pomona Once More . . . .83 

ix We Camp Out 93 

x Wet Blankets 108 

xi The Boarder’s Visit . . . 118 

xii Lord Edward and the Tree-Man . 131 

xiii Pomona’s Novel 146 

xiv Pomona Takes a Bridal Trip . . 164 

xv In which Two New Friends Disport 

Themselves 175 


v 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


CHAPTER 

xyi In which an Old Friend Appears and 
the Bridal Trip Takes a Fresh 

Start 189 

xvii In which We Take a Vacation and 

Look for David Dutton . . 199 

xviii Our Tavern 210 

xix The Baby at Rudder Grange . 226 

xx The Other Baby at Rudder Grange 235 



vi 


RUDDER GRANGE 


RUDDER GRANGE 


CHAPTER I 

TREATING OF A NOVEL STYLE OF 
DWELLING-HOUSE 

F OR some months after our marriage, Euphemia 
and I boarded. But we did not like it ; indeed, 
there was no reason why we should. Euphemia said 
that she never felt at home except when she was 
out, which feeling, indicating such an excessively un- 
philosophic state of mind, was enough to make me 
desire to have a home of my own, where, except upon 
rare and exceptional occasions, my wife would never 
care to go out. 

If you should want to rent a house, there are three 
ordinary ways to find one. One way is to advertise ; 
another is to read the advertisements of other people, 
and a third method is to apply to a real-estate agent. 
But none of these plans is worth anything. The 
proper way is to know some one who will tell you of 
a house that will exactly suit you. Euphemia and I 
thoroughly investigated this matter, and I know that 
what I say is a fact. 

We tried all the plans. When we advertised, we 
had about a dozen admirable answers, but in these,, 

3 


RUDDER GRANGE 


although everything seemed to suit, the amount of 
rent was not named. None of those in which the 
rent was named would do at all, and when I went to 
see the owners or agents of the suitable houses, they 
asked much higher rents than those mentioned in 
the unavailable answers— and this notwithstanding 
the fact that they always asserted that their terms 
were either very reasonable or else greatly reduced 
on account of the season being advanced— it was now 
the 15th of May. 

Euphemia and I once wrote a book,— this was just 
before we were married,— in which we told young 
married people how to go to housekeeping and how 
much it would cost them. We knew all about it, for 
we had asked several people. Now, the prices de- 
manded as yearly rental for furnished houses, by 
the owners and agents of whom I have been speak- 
ing, were, in some cases, more than we had stated a 
house could be bought and furnished for ! 

The advertisements of other people did not serve 
any better. There was always something wrong about 
the houses when we made close inquiries, and the 
trouble was generally in regard to the rent. With 
agents we had little better fortune. Euphemia some- 
times went with me on my expeditions to real-estate 
offices, and she remarked that these offices were 
always in the basement, or else you had to go up to 
them in an elevator. There was nothing between 
these extremes, and it was a good deal the same 
way, she said, with their houses. They were all very 
low indeed in price and quality, or else too high. 

One trouble was that we wanted a house in a coun- 
try place, not very far from the city, and not very far 
4 


RUDDER GRANGE 


from the railroad-station or steamboat-landing. We 
also wanted the house to be nicely shaded and fully 
furnished, and not to be in a malarial neighborhood, 
or one infested by mosquitoes. 

“If we do go to housekeeping,” said Enphemia, 
“we might as well get a house to suit us, while we 
are about it. Moving is more expensive than a 
fire.” 

There was one man who offered us a house that 
almost suited us. It was near the water, had rooms 
enough, with some, but not very much, ground, and 
was very accessible to the city. The rent, too, was 
quite reasonable. But the house was unfurnished. 
The agent, however, did not think that this should 
present any obstacle to our taking it. He was sure 
that the owner would furnish it if we paid him ten 
per cent, on the value of the furniture he put into it. 
We agreed that if the landlord would do this, and let 
us furnish the house according to the plans laid down 
in our book, we would take the house. But unfortu- 
nately this arrangement did not suit the landlord, 
although he was in the habit of furnishing houses for 
tenants and charging them ten per cent, on the cost. 

I saw him myself and talked to him about it. 

“But you see,” said he, when I had shown him our 
list of articles necessary for the furnishing of a house, 
“it would not pay me to buy all these things and 
rent them out to you. If you only wanted heavy 
furniture, which would last for years, the plan would 
answer ; but you want everything. I believe the small 
conveniences you have on this list come to more money 
than the furniture and carpets.” 

“Oh, yes,” said I. “We are not so very particular 
5 


RUDDER GRANGE 


about furniture and carpets, but these little conve- 
niences are the things that make housekeeping pleas- 
ant and — speaking from a common-sense point of 
view— profitable.” 

“That may be,” he answered, “but I can’t afford to 
make matters pleasant and profitable for you in that 
way. Now, then, let us look at one or two particulars. 
Here on your list is an ice-pick, twenty-five cents. 
Now, if I buy that ice-pick and rent it to you at two 
and a half cents a year, I shall not get my money back 
unless it lasts you ten years. And even then, as it is 
not probable that I can sell that ice-pick after you 
have used it for ten years, I shall have made nothing 
at all by my bargain. And there are other things in 
that list, such as feather dusters and lamp-chimneys, 
that couldn’t possibly last ten years. Don’t you see 
my position?” 

I saw it. We did not get that furnished house. 
Euphemia was greatly disappointed. 

“It would have been just splendid,” she said, “to 
have taken our book and to have ordered all these 
things at the stores, one after another, without even 
being obliged to ask the price.” 

I had my private doubts in regard to this matter of 
price. I was afraid that Euphemia generally set down 
the lowest prices and the best things. She did not 
mean to mislead, and her plan certainly made our 
book attractive. But it did not work very well in 
practice. We have a friend who undertook to furnish 
her house by our book, and she never could get the 
things as cheap as we had them quoted. 

“But you see,” said Euphemia to her, “we had to 
put them down at very low prices, because the model 
6 


RUDDER GRANGE 


house we speak of in the book is to be entirely fur- 
nished for just so much . 77 

But, in spite of this explanation, our friend was not 
satisfied. 

We found ourselves obliged to give up the idea of 
a furnished house. We would have taken an unfur- 
nished one and furnished it ourselves, but we had not 
money enough. We were dreadfully afraid that we 
should have to continue to board. 

It was now getting on toward summer,— at least, there 
was only a part of a month of spring left,— and when- 
ever I could get off from my business Euphemia and 
I made little excursions into the country round about 
the city. One afternoon we went up the river, and 
there we saw a sight that transfixed us, as it were. On 
the bank, a mile or so above the city, stood a canal- 
boat. I say stood, because it was so firmly embedded 
in the ground by the riverside that it would have 
been almost as impossible to move it as to have turned 
the Sphinx around. This boat, we soon found, was in- 
habited by an oysterman and his family. They had 
lived there for many years, and were really doing 
quite well. The boat was divided, inside, into rooms, 
and these were papered and painted and nicely fur- 
nished. There was a kitchen, a living-room, a parlor, 
and bedrooms. There were all sorts of conveniences, 
carpets on the floors, pictures, and everything— at 
least, so it seemed to us— to make a home comfortable. 
This was not all done at once, the oysterman told me. 
They had lived there for years, and had gradually 
added this and that until the place was as we saw it. 
He had an oyster-bed out in the river, and he made 
cider in the winter, but where he got the apples I 

7 


RUDDER GRANGE 


don’t know. There was really no reason why he 
should not get rich in time. 

We went all over that house, and we praised every- 
thing so much that the oysterman’s wife was delighted, 
and when we had some stewed oysters afterward,— 
eating them at a little table under a tree near by, 
—I believe she picked out the very largest oysters 
she had to stew for us. When we had finished our 
supper and had paid for it, and were going down to 
take our little boat again,— for we had rowed up the 
river,— Euphemia stopped and looked around her. 
Then she clasped her hands and exclaimed in an 
ecstatic undertone : 

“We must have a canal-boat ! ” 

And she never swerved from that determination. 

After I had seriously thought over the matter, I 
could see no good reason against adopting this plan. 
It would certainly be a cheap method of living, and it 
would really be housekeeping. I grew more and 
more in favor of it. After what the oysterman had 
done, what might not we do ? He had never written 
a book on housekeeping, nor, in all probability, had 
he considered the matter philosophically for one 
moment in all his life. 

But it was not an easy thing to find a canal-boat. 
There were none advertised for rent— at least, not for 
housekeeping purposes. 

We made many inquiries and took many a long 
walk along the water-courses in the vicinity of the 
city, but all in vain. Of course we talked a great 
deal about our project, and our friends became greatly 
interested in it, and of course, too, they gave us a 
great deal of advice, 'but we didn’t mind that; we 
8 


RUDDER GRANGE 


were philosophical enough to know that one cannot 
have fish without bones. They were good friends, and 
by being careful in regard to the advice, it did not 
interfere with our comfort. 

We were beginning to be discouraged— at least, 
Euphemia was. Her discouragement is like water- 
cress : it generally comes up in a very short time 
after she sows her wishes. But then it withers away 
rapidly, which is a comfort. One evening we were 
sitting, rather disconsolately, in our room, and I was 
reading out the advertisements of country board in a 
newspaper, when in rushed Dr. Heare— one of our old 
friends. He was so full of something that he had to 
say that he didn’t even ask us how we were. In fact, 
he didn’t appear to want to know. 

“I tell you what it is,” said he, “I have found just 
the very thing you want.” 

“A canal-boat?” I cried. 

“Yes,” said he, “a canal-boat.” 

“Furnished?” asked Euphemia, her eyes glistening. 

“Well, no,” answered the doctor. “I don’t think 
you could expect that.” 

“But we can’t live on the bare floor,” said Euphe- 
mia ; “our house must be furnished.” 

“Well, then, I suppose this won’t do,” said the 
doctor, ruefully, “for there isn’t so much as a boot- 
jack in it. It has most things that are necessary for a 
boat, but it hasn’t anything that you could call house 
furniture ; but dear me ! I should think you could fur- 
nish it very cheaply and comfortably out of your book.” 

“Very true,” said Euphemia, “if we could pick out 
the cheapest things, and then get some folks to buy a 
lot of the books.” 


9 


RUDDER GRANGE 


“We could begin with very little / 7 said I, trying 
hard to keep calm. 

“Certainly / 7 said the doctor, “you need make no 
more rooms, at first, than you could furnish . 77 

“Then there are no rooms / 7 said Euphemia. 

“ No ; there is nothing but one vast apartment extend- 
ing from stem to stern . 77 

“Won’t it be glorious ! 77 said Euphemia to me. 
“We can first make a kitchen, and then a dining- 
room, and a bedroom, and then a parlor— just in the 
order in which our book says they ought to be fur- 
nished . 77 

“Glorious ! 77 I cried, no longer able to contain my 
enthusiasm. “I should think so. Doctor, where is 
this canal-boat ? 77 

The doctor then went into a detailed statement. 

The boat was stranded on the shore of the Scolds- 
bury River, not far below Ginx’s. We knew where 
Ginx’s was, because we had spent a very happy day 
there during our honeymoon. 

The boat was a good one, but superannuated. That, 
however, would not interfere with its usefulness as a 
dwelling. We could get it— the doctor had seen the 
owner— for a small rental, and there was positively 
no end to its capabilities. 

We sat up until twenty minutes past two, talking 
about that house. We ceased to call it a boat at about 
a quarter of eleven. 

The next day I rented the boat and paid for a 
month in advance. Three days afterward we moved 
into it. 

We had not much to move, which was a comfort, 
looking at it from one point of view. A carpenter 
10 


RUDDER GRANGE 


had put up two partitions in the boat, which made three 
rooms — a kitchen, a dining-room, and a very long bed- 
room, which was to be cut up into a parlor, study, 
spare room, etc., as soon as circumstances should 
allow or my salary should be raised. Originally, all 
the doors and windows were in the roof, so to speak ; 
but our landlord allowed us to make as many windows 
to the side of the boat as we pleased, provided we gave 
him the wood we cut out. It saved him trouble, he 
said, but I did not understand him at the time. Ac- 
cordingly, the carpenter made several windows for us, 
and put in sashes, which opened on hinges like the hasps 
of a trunk. Although our furniture did not amount 
to much at first, the very thought of living in this in- 
dependent, romantic way was so delightful, Euphemia 
said, that furniture seemed a mere secondary matter. 

We were obliged, indeed, to give up the idea of fol- 
lowing the plan detailed in our book, because we had 
not the sum upon which the furnishing of a small house 
was therein based. 

“And if we haven’t the money,” remarked Euphe- 
mia, “it would be of no earthly use to look at the book. 
It would only make us doubt our own calculations. 
You might as well try to make brick without mortar, 
as the children of Israel did.” 

“I could do that myself, my dear^” said I, “but we 
won’t discuss that subject now. ( We will buy just 
what we absolutely need, and then work up from 
that.” 

Acting on this plan, we bought first a small stove, 
because Euphemia said that we could sleep on the 
floor, if it were necessary, but we could not make a fire 
on the floor— at least, not often. Then we got a table 
11 


RUDDER GRANGE 


and two chairs. The next thing we purchased was 
some hanging shelves for our books, and then Euphe- 
mia suddenly remembered the kitchen things. These, 
which were few, with some crockery, nearly brought 
us to the end of our resources ; but we had enough for 
a big easy- chair which Euphemia was determined I 
should have, because I really needed it when I came 
home at night, tired with my long day’s work at the 
office. I had always been used to an easy-chair, and 
it was one of her most delightful dreams to see me 
in a really nice one, comfortably smoking my pipe in 
my own house, after eating my own delicious little 
supper in company with my own dear wife. We 
selected the chair, and were about to order the things 
sent out to our future home, when I happened to 
think that we had no bed. I called Euphemia’s at- 
tention to the fact. 

She was thunderstruck. 

“I never thought of that,” she said. “We shall 
have to give up the stove.” 

“Not at all,” said I, “we can’t do that. We must 
give up the easy-chair.” 

“Oh, that would be too bad,” said she. “The house 
would seem like nothing to me without the chair ! ” 

“But we must do without it, my dear,” said I, “at 
least, for a while. I can sit out on deck and smoke of 
an evening, you know.” 

“Yes,” said Euphemia. “You can sit on the bul- 
warks, and I can sit by you. That will do very well. 
I’m sure I’m glad the boat has bulwarks.” ) 

So we resigned the easy-chair and bouglit a bedstead 
and some very plain bedding. The bedstead was what 
is sometimes called a “scissors-bed.” We could shut 


12 


RUDDER GRANGE 


it up when we did not want to sleep in it, and stand 
it against the wall. 

When we packed up our trunks and left the board- 
ing-house Euphemia fairly skipped with joy. 

We went down to Ginx’s in the first boat, having 
arranged that our furniture should be sent to us in 
the afternoon. We wanted to be there to receive 
it. The trip was wildly delirious. The air was 
charming, the sun was bright, and I had a whole 
holiday. When we reached Ginx’s we found that 
the best way to get our trunks and ourselves to our 
house was to take a carriage, and so we took one. I 
told the driver to drive along the river road and I 
would tell him where to stop. 

When we reached our boat, and had alighted, I said 
to the driver : 

“You can just put our trunks inside, anywhere.” 

The man looked at the trunks and then looked at 
the boat. Afterward he looked at me. 

“That boat ain’t goin’ anywhere,” said he. 

“I should think not,” said Euphemia. “We 
shouldn’t want to live in it if it were.” 

“You are going to live in it? ” said the man. 

“Yes,” said Euphemia. 

“Oh!” said the man, and he took our trunks on 
board without another word. 

It was not very easy for him to get the trunks into 
our new home. In fact, it was not easy for us to get 
there ourselves. There was a gang-plank with a rail 
on one side of it, which inclined from the shore to the 
deck of the boat at an angle of forty-five degrees j and 
when the man had staggered up this plank with the 
trunks, — Euphemia said I ought to have helped him, 
13 


RUDDER GRANGE 


but I really thought that it would be better for one 
person to fall oif the plank than for two to go over 
together,— and we had paid him, and he had driven 
away in a speechless condition, we scrambled up and 
stood upon the threshold, or rather the after-deck, of 
our home. 

It was a proud moment. Euphemia glanced around, 
her eyes full of happy tears, and then she took my 
arm and we went down-stairs $ at least, we tried to 
go down in that fashion, but we soon found it necessary 
to go one at a time. We wandered over the whole 
extent of our mansion, and found that our carpenter 
had done his work better than the woman whom we 
had engaged to scrub and clean the house. Something 
akin to despair must have seized upon Euphemia, for 
she declared that the floors looked dirtier than on the 
occasion of her first visit, when we rented the boat. 

But that did not discourage us. We felt sure that 
we would get it clean in time. 

Early in the afternoon our furniture arrived, to- 
gether with the other things we had bought, and the 
men who brought them over from the steamboat-land- 
ing had the brightest, merriest faces I ever noticed 
among that class of people. Euphemia said it was an 
excellent omen to have such cheerful fellows come to 
us on the very first day of our housekeeping. 

Then we went to work. I put up the stove, which 
was not much trouble, as there was a place all ready 
in the deck for the stovepipe to be run through. 
Euphemia was somewhat surprised at the absence of 
a chimney, but I assured her that boats were very 
seldom built with chimneys. My dear little wife 
bustled about and arranged the pots and kettles on 
14 


RUDDER GRANGE 


nails that I drove into the kitchen walls. Then she 
made the bed in the bedroom, and I hung up a look- 
ing-glass and a few little pictures we had brought in 
our trunks. 

Before four o’clock our house was in order. Then 
we began to be very hungry. 

“My dear,” said Euphemia, “we ought to have 
thought to bring something to cook.” 

“That is very true,” said I, “but I think perhaps 
we would better walk up to Ginx’s and get our supper 
to-night. You see, we are so tired and hungry.” 

“What ! ” cried Euphemia, “go to a hotel the very 
first day? I think it would be dreadful! Why, I 
have been looking forward to this first meal with the 
greatest delight. You can go up to the little store by 
the hotel and buy some things, and I will cook them, 
and we will have our first dear little meal here all 
alone by ourselves, at our own table and in our own 
house.” 

So this was determined upon, and after a hasty 
counting of the fund I had reserved for moving and 
kindred expenses, which had been sorely depleted 
during the day, I set out, and in about an hour re- 
turned with my first marketing. 

I made a fire, using a lot of chips and blocks the 
carpenter had left, and Euphemia cooked the supper, 
and we ate it from our little table, with two large 
towels for a table-cloth. 

It was the most delightful meal I ever ate ! 

And when we had finished, Euphemia washed the 
dishes,— the thoughtful creature had put some water 
on the stove to heat for the purpose while we were at 
supper,— and then we went on deck, or on the piazza, 
15 


RUDDER GRANGE 


as Euphemia thought we would better call it, and there 
we had our smoke. I say we , for Euphemia always 
helps me to smoke by sitting by me, and she seems to 
enjoy it as much as I do. 

"When the shades of evening began to gather around 
us, I hauled in the gang-plank,— just like a delight- 
ful old drawbridge, Euphemia said,— although I hope, 
for the sake of our ancestors, that drawbridges were 
easier to haul in, and went to bed. 

It is lucky we were tired and wanted to go to bed 
early, for we had forgotten all about lamps or candles. 

For the next week we were two busy and happy 
people. I rose about half-past five and made the 
fire,— we found so much wood on the shore that I 
thought I should not have to add fuel to my expenses, 
—and Euphemia cooked the breakfast. I next went 
to a well belonging to a cottage near by where we had 
arranged for water privileges, and filled two buckets 
with delicious water and carried them home for Eu- 
phemia’s use through the day. Then I hurried off to 
catch the train, for, as there was a station near Ginx’s, 
I ceased to patronize the steamboat, the hours of which 
were not convenient. After a day of work and plea- 
surable anticipation at the office, I hastened back to 
my home, generally laden with a basket of provisions 
and various household necessities. Milk was brought 
to us daily from the above-mentioned cottage by a 
little toddler who seemed just able to carry the small 
tin bucket which held a lacteal pint. If the urchin 
had been the child of rich parents, as Euphemia some- 
times observed, he would have been in his nurse’s 
arms ; but, being poor, he was scarcely weaned before 
he began to carry milk around to other people. 

16 


RUDDER GRANGE 


After I reached home came supper and the delight- 
ful evening hours, when over my pipe— I had given 
up cigars as being too expensive and inappropriate, 
and had taken to a tall pipe and canaster tobacco— we 
talked and planned, and told each other our day’s 
experiences. 

One of our earliest subjects of discussion was the 
name of our homestead. Euphemia insisted that it 
should have a name. I was quite willing, but we 
found it no easy matter to select an appropriate title. 

I proposed a number of appellations intended to 
suggest the character of our home. Among these 
were “Safe Ashore,” “Firmly Grounded,” and some 
other names of that style, but Euphemia did not 
fancy any of them. She wanted a suitable name, of 
course, she said, but it must be something that would 
sound like a house and be like a boat. 

“Partitionville” she objected to, and “Gangplank 
Terrace” did not suit her because it suggested con- 
victs going out to work, which naturally was un- 
pleasant. 

At last, after days of talk and cogitation, we named 
our house “Rudder Grange.” 

To be sure, it was not exactly a grange ; but then, it 
had such an enormous rudder that the justice of this 
part of the title seemed to overbalance any little inac- 
curacy in the other portion. 

But we did not spend all our spare time in talking. 
An hour or two every evening was occupied in what 
we called “fixing the house,” and gradually the inside 
of our abode began to look like a conventional dwell- 
ing. We put matting on the floors, and cheap but 
very pretty paper on the walls. We added now a 
17 


RUDDER GRANGE 




couple of chairs, and now a table or something for the 
kitchen. Frequently, especially of a Sunday, we had 
company, and our guests were always charmed with 
Euphemia’s cunning little meals. The dear girl loved 
good eating so much that she could scarcely fail to be 
a good cook. 

We worked hard, and were very happy. And thus 
the weeks passed on. 


18 


CHAPTER II 


TREATING- OF A NOVEL STYLE OF BOARDER 

In this delightful way of living only one thing troubled 
us. We did not save any money. There were so many 
little things that we wanted, and so many little things 
that were so cheap, that I spent pretty much all I 
made, which was far from the philosophical plan of 
living I wished to follow. 

We talked this matter over a great deal after we 
had lived in our new home for about a month, and we 
came at last to the conclusion that we would take a 
boarder. 

We had no trouble in getting a boarder, for we 
had a friend, a young man engaged in the flour busi- 
ness, who was very anxious to come and live with 
us. He had been to see us two or three times, and 
had expressed himself charmed with our household 
arrangements. 

So we made terms with him. The carpenter par- 
titioned off another room, and our boarder brought 
his trunk and a large red velvet arm-chair, and took 
up his abode at Rudder Grange. 

We liked our boarder very much, but he had some 
peculiarities. I suppose everybody has them. Among 
other things, he was very fond of telling us what we 
19 


RUDDER GRANGE 


ought to do. He suggested more improvements in the 
first three days of his sojourn with us than I had 
thought of since we commenced housekeeping j and 
what made the matter worse, his suggestions were 
generally very good ones. Had it been otherwise I 
might have borne his remarks more complacently ; but 
to be continually told what you ought to do, and to 
know that you ought to do it, is extremely annoying. 

He was very anxious that I should take off the 
rudder, which was certainly useless to a boat situated 
as ours was, and make an ironing-table of it. I per- 
sisted that the laws of symmetrical propriety required 
that the rudder should remain where it was— that 
the very name of our home would be interfered with 
by its removal ; but he insisted that “Ironing-Table 
Grange” would be just as good a name, and that 
symmetrical propriety in such a case did not amount 
to a row of pins. 

The result was that we had the ironing-table, and 
that Euphemia was very much pleased with it. A 
great many other improvements were projected and 
carried out by him, and I was very much worried. 
He made a flower-garden for Euphemia on the ex- 
treme forward deck, and having borrowed a wheel- 
barrow, he wheeled dozens of loads of arable dirt up 
our gang-plank and dumped them out on the deck. 
When he had covered the garden with a suitable 
depth of earth, he smoothed it off and then planted 
flower-seeds. It was rather late in the season, but 
most of them came up. I was pleased with the garden, 
but sorry I had not made it myself. 

One afternoon I got away from the office consider- 
ably earlier than usual, and I hurried home to enjoy 
20 


RUDDER GRANGE 


the short period of daylight that I would have before 
supper. It had been raining the day before, and as 
the bottom of our garden leaked so that earthy water 
trickled down at one end of our bedroom, I intended 
to devote a short time to stuffing up the cracks in the 
ceiling or bottom of the deck— whichever seems the 
most appropriate. 

But when I reached a bend in the river road whence 
I always had the earliest view of my establishment, I 
did not have that view. I hurried on. The nearer I 
approached the place where I lived, the more horror- 
stricken I became. There was no mistaking the fact. 

The boat was not there ! 

In an instant the truth flashed upon me. 

The water was very high— the rain had swollen the 
river— my house had floated away ! 

It was Wednesday. On Wednesday afternoons our 
boarder came home early. 

I clapped my hat tightly on my head and ground 
my teeth. 

“ Confound that boarder!” I thought. “He has 
been fooling with the anchor. He always said it was 
of no use, and he has taken advantage of my absence, 
hauled it up, and has floated away, and has gone- 
gone with my wife and my home ! ” 

Euphemia and Rudder Grange had gone off together, 
—where I knew not,— and with them that horrible 
suggester ! 

I ran wildly along the bank. I called aloud. I 
shouted and hailed each passing craft,— of which there 
were only two,— but their crews must have been very 
inattentive to the woes of landsmen, or else they did 
not hear me, for they paid no attention to my cries. 

21 


RUDDER GRANGE 


I met a fellow with an axe on his shoulder, and I 
shouted to him before I reached him : 

“Hello ! did you see a boat— a house, I mean— 
floating up the river ?’ 7 

“A boat-house ? 77 asked the man. 

“Ho, a house-boat , 77 I gasped. 

“Didn’t see nothin’ like it,” said the man, and he 
passed on, to his wife and home, no doubt. But me ! 
Oh, where was my wife and my home ? 

I met several people, but none of them had seen a 
fugitive canal-boat. 

How many thoughts came into my brain as I ran 
along that river road ! If that wretched boarder had 
not taken the rudder for an ironing-table he might 
have steered inshore ! Again and again I confounded 
—as far as mental ejaculations could do it— his sug- 
gestions. 

I was rapidly becoming frantic when I met a person 
who hailed me. 

“Hello ! 77 he said, “are you after a canal-boat 
adrift?” 

“Yes,” I panted. 

“I thought you was,” he said. “You looked that 
way. Well, I can tell you where she is. She’s stuck 
fast in the reeds at the lower end o’ Peter’s P’int.” 

“Where’s that? ” said I. 

“Oh, it’s about a mile furder up. I seed her a-drift- 
in 7 up with the tide,— big flood- tide to-day,— and I 
thought I’d see somebody after her afore long. Any- 
thing aboard?” 

Anything ! 

I could not answer the man. Anything, indeed ! 
I hurried up the river without a word. Was the 
22 


RUDDER GRANGE 


boat a wreck? I scarcely dared to think of it. I 
scarcely dared to think at all. 

The man called after me, and I stopped. I could 
but stop, no matter what I might hear. 

“Hello, mister,” he said, “got any tobacco?’ 7 

I walked up to him. I took hold of him by the 
lapel of his coat. It was a dirty lapel, as I remember 
even now, but I did not mind that. 

“Look here,” said I. “Tell me the truth ,* I can 
bear it. Was that vessel wrecked? ” 

The man looked at me a little queerly. I could 
not exactly interpret his expression. 

“You’re sure you kin bear it? ” said he. 

“Yes,” said I, my hand trembling as I held his coat. 

“Well, then,” said he, “it’s more’n I kin,” and he 
jerked his coat out of my hand, and sprang away. 
When he reached the other side of the road, he turned 
and shouted at me as though I had been deaf. 

“Do you know what I think ? ” he yelled. “I think 
you’re a darned lunatic ; ” and with that he went his 
way. 

I hastened on to Peter’s Point. Long before I 
reached it I saw the boat. 

It was apparently deserted $ but still I pressed on. 
I must know the worst. When I reached the Point, 
I found that the boat had run aground, with her head 
in among the long reeds and mud, and the rest of her 
hull lying at an angle from the shore. 

There was consequently no way for me to get on 
board but to wade through the mud and reeds to her 
bow, and then climb up as well as I could. 

This I did, but it was not easy. Twice I sank 
above my knees in mud and water, and had it not 
23 


RUDDER GRANGE 


been for reeds, masses of which I frequently clutched 
when I thought I was going over, I believe I should 
have fallen down and come to my death in that hor- 
rible marsh. When I reached the boat, I stood up to 
my hips in water, and saw no way of climbing up. 
The gang-plank had undoubtedly floated away, but 
even if it had not, it would have been of no use to me 
in my position. 

I was desperate. I clasped the post that they put 
in the bow of canal-boats ; I stuck my toes and my 
finger-nails in the cracks between the boards,— how 
glad I was that the boat was an old one and had 
cracks !— and so, painfully and slowly, slipping part 
way down once or twice, and besliming myself from 
chin to foot, I climbed up that post and scrambled 
upon deck. In an instant I reached the top of the 
stairs, and in another instant I rushed below. 

There sat my wife and our boarder, one on each 
side of the dining-room table, complacently playing 
checkers ! 

My sudden entrance startled them. My appearance 
startled them still more. 

Euphemia sprang to her feet and tottered toward 
me. 

“Mercy!” she exclaimed. “Has anything hap- 
pened?” 

“Happened ! ” I gasped. 

“Look here,” cried the boarder, clutching me by 
the arm, “what a condition you’re in ! Did you fall 
in?” 

“Fall in ! ” said I. 

Euphemia and the boarder looked at each other. I 
looked at them. Then I opened my mouth in earnest. 

24 


RUDDER GRANGE 


“I suppose you don’t know/’ I yelled, “that you 
have drifted away ! ” 

“By George ! ” cried the boarder, and in two bounds 
he was on deck. 

Dirty as I was, Euphemia fell into my arms. I told 
her all. She had not known a bit of it ! 

The boat had so gently drifted off, and had so 
gently grounded among the reeds, that the voyage 
had never so much as disturbed their games of 
checkers. 

“He plays such a splendid game,” Euphemia sobbed, 
“and just as you came I thought I was going to beat 
him. I had two kings and two pieces on the next to 
last row, and you are nearly drowned ! You’ll get 
your death of cold— and— and he had only one king.” 

She led me away, and I undressed and washed myself 
and put on my Sunday clothes. 

When I reappeared I went out on deck with Eu- 
phemia. The boarder was there, standing by the 
petunia-bed. His arms were folded and he was 
thinking profoundly. As we approached he turned 
toward us. 

“You were right about that anchor,” he said, “I 
should not have hauled it in. But it was such a little 
anchor that I thought it would be of more use on 
board as a garden hoe.” 

“A very little anchor will sometimes do very well,” 
said I, cuttingly, “when it is hooked around a tree.” 

“Yes, there is something in that,” said he. 

It was now growing late, and as our agitation sub- 
sided we began to be hungry. Fortunately, we had 
everything necessary on board, and as it really did not 
make any difference in our household economy where 
25 


RUDDER GRANGE 


we happened to be located, we had supper quite as 
usual. Iu fact, the kettle had been put on to boil 
during the checker-playing. 

After supper we went on deck to smoke, as was our 
custom ; but there was a certain coolness between me 
and our boarder. 

Early the next morning I arose and went up -stairs 
to consider what would better be done, when I saw the 
boarder standing on shore, near by. 

“ Hello ! ” he cried, “the tide’s down and I came 
ashore without any trouble. You stay where you 
are. I’ve hired a couple of mules to tow the boat 
back. They’ll be here when the tide rises. And 
hello ! I’ve found the gang-plank. It floated ashore 
about a quarter of a mile below here.” 

In the course of the afternoon the mules and two 
men with a long rope appeared, and we were then 
towed back where we belonged. 

Our boarder remained with us, as the weather con- 
tinued to be fine, and the coolness between us gradually 
diminished. But after that, the boat was moored at 
both ends, and twice a day I looked to see if the ropes 
were all right. 


26 


CHAPTER III 


TREATING OF A NOVEL STYLE OF GIRL 

One afternoon, as I was hurrying down Broadway to 
catch the five-o’clock train, I met Waterford. He is 
an old friend of mine, and I used to like him pretty 
well. 

“Hello ! ” said he, “where are you going?” 
“Home,” I answered. 

“Is that so?” said he. “I didn’t know you had 
one.” 

I was a little nettled at this, and so I said, somewhat 
roughly, perhaps : 

“But you must have known I lived somewhere.” 
“Oh, yes, but I thought you boarded,” said he. 
“I had no idea that you had a home.” 

“But I have one, and a very pleasant home, too. 
You must excuse me for not stopping longer, as I 
must catch my train.” 

“Oh ! I’ll walk along with you,” said Waterford, 
and so we went down the street together. 

“Where is your little house?” he asked. 

Why in the world he thought it was a little house 
I could not at the time imagine, unless he supposed 
that two people would not require a large one. But 
27 


RUDDER GRANGE 

I know, now, that he lived in a very little house 
himself. 

But it was of no use getting angry with Waterford, 
especially as I saw he intended walking all the way 
down to the ferry with me, so I told him I did not live 
in any house at all. 

“Why, where do you live?” he exclaimed, stopping 
short. 

“I live in a boat,” said I. 

“A boat! A sort of ‘Rob Roy’ arrangement, I 
suppose. Well, I would not have thought that of 
you. And your wife, I suppose, has gone home to her 
people ? ” 

“She has done nothing of the kind,” I answered. 
“She lives with me, and she likes it very much. We 
are extremely comfortable, and our boat is not a 
canoe, or any such nonsensical affair. It is a large, 
commodious canal-boat.” 

Waterford turned around and looked at me. 

“Are you a deck-hand?” he asked. 

“Deck-grandmother ! ” I exclaimed. 

“Well, you needn’t get mad about it,” he said. “I 
didn’t mean to hurt your feelings ; but I couldn’t see 
what else you could be on a canal-boat. I don’t sup- 
pose, for instance, that you’re captain.” 

“But I am,” said I. 

“Look here!” said Waterford ; “this is coming it 
rather strong, isn’t it? ” 

As I saw he was getting angry, I told him all about 
it— how we had hired a stranded canal-boat and 
had fitted it up as a house, and how we lived so 
cosily in it, and had called it “Rudder Grange,” and 
how we had taken a boarder. 


28 


RUDDER GRANGE 


“Well ! ” said he, “this certainly is surprising. I’m 
coming out to see you some day. It will be better 
than going to Barnum’s.” 

I told him— it is the way of society— that we would 
be glad to see him, and we parted. Waterford never 
did come to see us, and I merely mention this incident 
to show how some of our friends talked about Budder 
Grange when they first heard that we lived there. 

After dinner that evening, when I went up on deck 
with Euphemia to have my smoke, we saw the boarder 
sitting on the bulwarks near the garden, with his legs 
dangling down outside. 

“Look here ! ” said he. 

I looked, but there was nothing unusual to see. 

“What is it? ” I asked. 

He turned around and, seeing Euphemia, said : 

“Nothing.” 

It would be a very stupid person who could not 
take such a hint as that, and so, after a walk around 
the garden, Euphemia took occasion to go below to 
look at the kitchen fire. 

As soon as she had gone, the boarder turned to me 
and said : 

“I’ll tell you what it is. She’s working herself 
sick.” 

“Sick f ” said I. “Nonsense ! ” 

“No nonsense about it,” he replied. 

The truth was that the boarder was right and I 
was wrong. We had spent several months at Budder 
Grange, and during this time Euphemia had been 
working very hard, and she really was beginning to 
look pale and thin. Indeed, it would be very wearying 
for any woman of culture and refinement, unused to 
29 


RUDDER GRANGE 


housework, to cook and care for two men, and to do 
all the work of a canal -boat besides. 

But I saw Euphemia so constantly, and thought so 
much of her, and had her image so continually in my 
heart, that I did not notice this until our boarder 
now called my attention to it. I was sorry that he 
had to do it. 

“If I were in your place,” said he, “I would get her 
a servant.” 

“If you were in my place,” I replied, somewhat cut- 
tingly, “you would probably suggest a lot of little 
things which would make everything very easy for 
her.” 

“I’d try to,” he answered, without getting in the 
least angry. 

Although I felt annoyed that he had suggested it, 
still I made up my mind that Euphemia must have a 
servant. 

She agreed quite readily when I proposed the plan, 
and she urged me to go to see the carpenter that 
very day, and get him to come and partition off a 
little room for the girl. 

It was some time, of course, before the room was 
made,— for who ever heard of a carpenter coming at 
the very time he was wanted?— and when it was 
finished, Euphemia occupied all her spare moments 
in getting it in nice order for the servant when she 
should come. I thought she was taking too much 
trouble, but she had her own ideas about such things. 

“If a girl is lodged like a pig you must expect her 
to behave like a pig, and I don’t want that kind.” 

So she put up pretty curtains at the girl’s window, 
and with a box that she stood on end, and some old 
30 


RUDDER GRANGE 


muslin and a lot of tacks, she made a toilet-table so 
neat and convenient that I thought she ought to take 
it into our room and give the servant our wash-stand. 

But all this time we had no girl $ and as I had made 
up my mind about the matter, I naturally grew im- 
patient, and at last I determined to go and get a girl 
myself. 

One day, at lunch-time, I went to an intelligence 
office in the city. There I found a large room on the 
second floor, and some ladies and one or two men 
sitting about, and a small room back of it crowded 
with girls from eighteen to sixty-eight years old. 
There were also girls upon the stairs, and girls in the 
hall below, besides some girls standing on the sidewalk 
before the door. 

When I made known my business and had paid my 
fee, one of the several proprietors who were wandering 
about the front room went into the back apartment, 
and soon returned with a tall Irishwoman with a bony, 
weather-beaten face and a large weather-beaten shawl. 
This woman was told to take a chair by my side. 
Down sat the huge creature and stared at me. I did 
not feel very easy under her scrutinizing gaze, but I 
bore it as best I could, and immediately began to ask 
her all the appropriate questions I could think of. 
Some she answered satisfactorily, and some she did 
not answer at all ; but as soon as I made a pause she 
began to put questions herself. 

“How many servants do you kape?” she asked. 

I answered that we intended to get along with one, 
and if she understood her business, I thought she 
would find her work very easy, and the place a good 
one. 


31 


RUDDER GRANGE 


She turned sharply upon me and said : 

“Have ye stationary wash-tubs ? ” 

I hesitated. I knew our wash-tubs were not station- 
ary, for I had helped to carry them about. But they 
might be screwed fast and made stationary, if that were 
an important object. But before making this answer 
I thought of the great conveniences for washing pre- 
sented by our residence, surrounded as it was, at high 
tide, by water. 

“Why, we live in a stationary wash-tub, 1 ” I said, 
smiling. 

The woman looked at me steadfastly for a minute, 
and then she rose to her feet. Then she called out, as 
if she were crying fish or strawberries : 

“Mrs. Blaine ! ” 

The female keeper of the intelligence office, and the 
male keeper, and a thin clerk, and all the women in 
the back room, and all the patrons in the front room, 
jumped up and gathered around us. 

Astonished and somewhat disconcerted, I rose to 
my feet and confronted the tall Irishwoman, and 
stood smiling in an uncertain sort of a way, as if it 
were all very funny ; but I could not see the point. I 
think I must have impressed the people with the idea 
that I wished I had not come. 

“He says,” exclaimed the woman, as if some other 
huckster were crying fish on the other side of the 
street— “he says he lives in a wash-toob.” 

“He’s crazy ! ” ejaculated Mrs. Blaine, with an air 
that indicated “policeman” as plainly as if she had 
put her thought into words. 

A low murmur ran through the crowd of women, 
while the thin clerk edged toward the door. 

32 


RUDDER GRANGE 


The one thing about Pomona that troubled me more 
than anything else was her taste for literature. It 
was not literature to which I objected, but her very 
peculiar taste. She would read in the kitchen every 
night after she had washed the dishes, but if she had 
not read aloud it would not have made so much differ- 
ence to me. But I am naturally very sensitive to ex- 
ternal impressions, and I do not like the company of 
people who, like our girl, cannot read without pro- 
nouncing in a measured and distinct voice every word 
of what they are reading. And when the matter 
thus read appeals to one’s every sentiment of aversion, 
and there is no way of escaping it, the case is hard 
indeed. 

From the first I felt inclined to order Pomona, if 
she could not attain the power of silent perusal, to 
cease from reading altogether 5 but Euphemia would 
not hear to this. 

“Poor thing ! ” said she, “it would be cruel to take 
from her her only recreation. And she says she can’t 
read any other way. You needn’t listen if you don’t 
want to.” 

This was all very well from an abstract point of view j 
but the fact was that, in practice, the more I did not 
want to listen, the more I heard. 

As the evenings were often cool, we sat in our dining- 
room, and the partition between this room and the 
kitchen seemed to have no influence whatever in 
arresting sound. So that when I was trying to read 
or to reflect, it was by no means exhilarating to my 
mind to hear from the next room that : 

“The La dy Ce sel i a now si zed the weep on and all 
though the boor ly vil ly an re tain ed his vy gor ous 
35 


RUDDER GRANGE 


hold she drew the blade through his fin gers and hoorl 
ed it far be hind her dryp ping with jore.” 

This sort of thing, kept up for an hour or so at a 
time, used to drive me nearly wild. But Euphemia 
did not mind it. I believe that she had so delicate a 
sense of what was proper that she did not hear Po- 
mona’s private readings. 

On one occasion even Euphemia’s influence could 
scarcely restrain me from violent interference. 

It was our boarder’s night out, when he was de- 
tained in town by his business, and Pomona was sit- 
ting up to let him in. This was necessary, for our 
front door, or main-hatchway, had no night-latch, 
but was fastened by means of a bolt. Euphemia and 
I used to sit up for him, but that was earlier in the 
season, when it was pleasant to be out on deck until 
quite a late hour. But Pomona never objected to 
sitting— or getting— up late, and so we allowed this 
weekly duty to devolve on her. 

On this particular night I was very tired and sleepy, 
and soon after I got into bed I dropped into a de- 
lightful slumber. But it was not long before I was 
awakened by the fact that : 

“Sa rah did not fl inch but gras ped the heat ed i ron 
in her un injur ed hand and when the ra bid an i mal 
a proach ed she thr ust the lur id po ker in his—” 

“My conscience ! ” said I to Euphemia, “can’t that 
girl be stopped?” 

“You wouldn’t have her sit there and do nothing, 
would you? ” said she. 

“No ; but she needn’t read out that way.” 

“She can’t read any other way,” said Euphemia, 
drowsily. 


36 


RUDDER GRANGE 


“ Yell af ter yell res oun ded as he wil dly spr rang—” 

“I can’t stand that, and I won’t,” said I. “Why 
don’t she go into the kitchen?— the dining-room’s no 
place for her.” 

“She must not sit there,” said Euphemia. “There’s 
a window-pane out. Can’t you cover up your head? ” 

“I shall not he able to breathe if I do ; but I sup- 
pose that’s no matter,” I replied. 

The reading continued : 

“Ha, ha! Lord Mar mont thun der ed thou too 
shalt suf fer all that this poor — ” 

I sprang out of bed. 

Euphemia thought I was going for my pistol, and 
she gave one bound and stuck her head out of the 
door. 

“Pomona, fly ! ” she cried. 

“Yes, sma’am,” said Pomona $ and she got up and 
flew— not very fast, I imagine. Where she flew to I 
don’t know, but she took the lamp with her, and I 
could hear distant syllables of agony and blood, until 
the boarder came home and Pomona went to bed. 

I think this made an impression upon Euphemia, 
for, although she did not speak to me upon the sub- 
ject, or any other, that night, the next time I heard 
Pomona reading, the words ran somewhat thus : 

“The as ton ish ing che ap ness of land is ac count ed 
for by the want of home mar kets, of good ro ads and 
che ap me ans of trans por ta ti on in ma ny sec ti ons 
of the State.” 


37 


CHAPTER IV 


TREATING OF A NOVEL STYLE OF BURGLAR 

I have spoken of my pistol. During the early part 
of our residence at Rudder Grange I never thought of 
such a thing as owning a pistol. 

But it was different now. I kept a Colt’s revolver 
loaded in the bureau-drawer in our bedroom. 

The cause of this change was burglars. Hot that 
any of these unpleasant persons had visited us, but we 
very much feared they would. Several houses in the 
vicinity had been entered during the past month, and 
we never could tell when our turn would come. 

To be sure, our boarder suggested that if we were 
to anchor out a little farther at night, no burglar 
would risk catching his death of cold by swimming 
out to us ; but Euphemia having replied that it 
would be rather difficult to move a canal-boat every 
night without paddle-wheels or sails or mules, espe- 
cially if it were aground, this plan was considered to 
be effectually disposed of. 

So we made up our minds that we must fasten up 
everything very securely, and I bought a pistol and 
two burglar-alarms. One of these I affixed to the 
most exposed window, and the other to the door which 
opened on the deck. These alarms were very simple 
38 


RUDDER GRANGE 


affairs, but they were good enough. When they were 
properly attached to a window or door, and it was 
opened, a little gong sounded like a violently de- 
ranged clock striking all the hours of the day at 
once. 

The window did not trouble us much, but it was 
rather irksome to have to make the attachment to 
the door every night and to take it off every morning. 
However, as Euphemia said, it was better to take a 
little trouble than to have the house full of burglars, 
which was true enough. 

/We made all the necessary arrangements in case 
^burglars should make an inroad upon us. At the first 
sound of the alarm, Euphemia and the girl were to lie 
flat on the floor or get under their beds. Then the 
boarder and I were to stand up back to back, each 
with pistol in hand, and fire away, revolving on a 
common centre the while. In this way, by aiming 
horizontally about four feet from the floor, we could 
rake the premises, and run no risk of shooting each 
other or the women of the family) 

To be sure, there were some slight objections to this 
plan. The boarder’s room was at some distance from 
ours, and he would probably not hear the alarm, and 
the burglars might not be willing to wait while I 
went forward and roused him up and brought him to 
our part of the house. But this was a minor difficulty. 
I had no doubt but that, if it should be necessary, I 
could manage to get our boarder into position in 
plenty of time. 

It was not very long before there was an opportu- 
nity of testing the plan. 

About twelve o’clock one night one of the alarms 
39 


RUDDER GRANGE 


— that on the kitchen window— went off with a whir 
and a wild succession of clangs. For a moment I 
thought the morning train had arrived, and then I 
woke up. Euphemia was already under the bed. 

I hurried on a few clothes, and tried to find the 
bureau in the dark. This was not easy, as I lost 
my bearings entirely. But I found it at last, got the 
top drawer open, and took out my pistol. Then I 
slipped out of the room, hurried up the stairs, opened 
the door, setting off the alarm there, by the way, 
and ran along the deck (there was a cold night wind), 
and hastily descended the steep steps that led into the 
boarder’s room. The door that was at the bottom of 
the steps was not fastened, and as I opened it a little 
stray moonlight illumed the room. I hastily stepped 
to the bed and shook the boarder by the shoulder. 
He kept his pistol under his pillow. 

In an instant he was on his feet, his hand grasped 
my throat, and the cold muzzle of his Derringer pistol 
was at my forehead. It was an awfully big muzzle, 
like the mouth of a bottle. 

I do not know when I lived so long as during the 
first minute that he held me thus. 

“Rascal ! ” he said. “Do as much as breathe, and 
I’ll pull the trigger.” 

I did not breathe. 

I had an accident insurance on my life. Would it 
hold good in a case like this? Or would Euphemia 
have to go back to her father ? 

He pushed me back into the little patch of moon- 
light. 

“Oh! is it you?” he said, relaxing his grasp. 
“What do you want? A mustard-plaster?” 

40 


RUDDER GRANGE 


He had a package of patent plasters in his room. 
You took one and dipped it in hot water, and it was 
all ready. 

“No,” said I, gasping a little. “Burglars.” 

“Oh ! ” he said, and he put down his pistol and put 
on his clothes. 

“Come along,” he said, and away we went over the 
deck. 

When we reached the stairs all was dark and quiet 
below. 

It was a matter of hesitancy as to going down. 

I started to go down first, but the boarder held me 
back. 

“Let me go down,” he said. 

“No,” said I, “my wife is there.” 

“That’s the very reason you should not go,” he said. 
“She is safe enough yet, and they would fire only 
at a man. It would be a bad job for her if you were 
killed. I’ll go down.” 

So he went down, slowly and cautiously, his pistol 
in one hand, and his life in the other, as it were. 

When he reached the bottom of the steps I changed 
my mind. I could not remain above while the bur- 
glar and Euphemia were below, so I followed. 

The boarder was standing in the middle of the din- 
ing-room, into which the stairs led. I could not see 
him, but I put my hand against him as I was feeling 
my way across the floor. 

I whispered to him : 

“Shall we put our backs together and revolve and 
fire ? ” 

“No,” he whispered back, “not now ; he may be on a 
shelf by this time, or under a table. Let’s look him up.” 

41 


RUDDER GRANGE 


I confess that I was not very anxious to look him 
up, hut I followed the boarder as he slowly made his 
way toward the kitchen door. As we opened the 
door we instinctively stopped. 

The window was open, and by the light of the moon 
that shone in we saw the rascal standing on a chair, 
leaning out of the window, evidently just ready to 
escape. Fortunately, we were unheard. 

Let’s pull him in,” whispered the boarder. 

“No,” I whispered in reply. “We don’t want him 
in. Let’s hoist him out.” 

“All right,” returned the boarder. 

We laid our pistols on the floor, and softly ap- 
proached the window. Being barefooted, our steps 
were noiseless. 

“Hoist when I count three,” breathed the boarder 
into my ear. 

We reached the chair. Each of us took hold of two 
of its legs. 

“One— two— three ! ” said the boarder, and together 
we gave a tremendous lift and shot the wretch out of 
the window. 

The tide was high, and there was a good deal of 
water around the boat. We heard a rousing splash 
outside. 

How there was no need of silence. 

“Shall we run on deck and shoot him as he swims ? ” 
I cried. 

“Ho,” said the boarder, “we’ll get the boat-hook, 
and jab him if he tries to climb up.” 

We rushed on deck. I seized the boat-hook and 
looked over the side. But I saw no one. 

“He’s gone to the bottom ! ” I exclaimed. 

42 


RUDDER GRANGE 


“He didn’t go very far, then,” said the boarder, 
“for it’s not more than two feet deep there.” 

Just then our attention was attracted by a voice 
from the shore : 

“Will you please let down the gang-plank! ” 

We looked ashore, and there stood Pomona, drip- 
ping from every pore. 

We spoke no words, but lowered the gang-plank^/ 

She came aboard. 

“Good night!” said the boarder, and he went to 
bed. 

“Pomona ! ” said I, “what have you been doing! ” 

“I was a-lookin’ at the moon, sir, when pop ! the 
chair bounced, and out I went.” 

“You shouldn’t do that,” I said sternly. “Some 
day you’ll be drowned. Take off your wet things and 
go to bed.” 

“Yes, sma’am— sir, I mean,” said she, as she went 
down-stairs. 

When I reached my room I lighted the lamp, and 
found Euphemia still under the bed. 

“Is it all right! ” she asked. 

“Yes,” I answered. “There was no burglar. Po- 
mona fell out of the window.” 

“Did you get her a plaster!” asked Euphemia, 
drowsily. 

“Ho, she did not need one. She’s all right now. 
Were you worried about me, dear!” 

“Ho 5 I trusted in you entirely, and I think I dozed 
a little under the bed.” 

In one minute she was asleep. 

The boarder and I did not make this matter a sub- 
ject of conversation afterward, but Euphemia gave 
43 


RUDDER GRANGE 

the girl a lecture on her careless ways, and made her 
take several Dover’s powders the next day. 

An important fact in domestic economy was dis- 
covered about this time by Euphemia and myself. 
Perhaps we were not the first to discover it, but we 
certainly did find it out $ and this fact was that 
housekeeping costs money. At the end of every 
week we counted up our expenditures,— it was no 
trouble at all to count up our receipts,— and every 
week the result was more unsatisfactory. 

“If we could only get rid of the disagreeable bal- 
ance that has to be taken along all the time, and 
which gets bigger and bigger like a snowball, I think 
we would find the accounts more satisfactory,” said 
Euphemia. 

This was on a Saturday night. We always got our 
pencils and paper and money at the end of the week. 

“Yes,” said I, with an attempt to appear facetious 
and unconcerned, “but it would be all well enough if 
we could take that snowball to the fire and melt it 
down.” 

“But there never is any fire where there are snow- 
balls,” said Euphemia. 

“No,” said I, “and that’s just the trouble.” 

It was on the following Thursday, when I came 
home in the evening, that Euphemia met me with a 
glowing face. It rather surprised me to see her look 
so happy, for she had been very quiet and preoccupied 
for the first part of the week ; so much so, indeed, 
that I had thought of ordering smaller roasts for a 
week or two, and taking her to a Thomas Concert, 
with the money saved. But this evening she looked 
as if she did not need Thomas’s orchestra. 


44 


RUDDER GRANGE 


“What makes you so bright, my dear?” said I, 
when I had greeted her. “Has anything jolly hap- 
pened?” 

“No,” said she, “nothing yet; but I am going to 
make a fire to melt snowballs.” 

Of course I was very anxious to know how she was 
going to do it, but she would not tell me. It was a 
plan that she intended to keep to herself until she 
saw how it worked. I did not press her, because she 
had so few secrets, and I did not hear anything about 
this plan until it had been carried out. 

Her scheme was as follows : After thinking over our 
financial condition and puzzling her brain to find out 
some way of bettering it, she had come to the conclu- 
sion that she would make some money by her own 
exertions to help defray our household expenses. 
She never had made any money, but that was no 
reason why she should not begin. It was too bad 
that I should have to toil and toil, and not make 
nearly enough money, after all. So she would go to 
work and earn something with her own hands. 

She had heard of an establishment in the city where 
ladies of limited means, or transiently impecunious, 
could, in a very quiet and private way, get sewing to 
do. They could thus provide for their needs without 
any one but the officers of the institution knowing 
anything about it. 

So Euphemia went to this place, and she got some 
work. It was not a very large bundle, but it was 
larger than she had been accustomed to carry, and, 
what was perfectly dreadful, it was wrapped up in a 
newspaper ! When Euphemia told me the story, she 
said that this was too much for her courage. She 
45 


RUDDER GRANGE 

could not go on the cars, and perhaps meet people 
belonging to our church, with a newspaper bundle 
under her arm. 

But her genius for expedients saved her from this 
humiliation. She had to purchase some sewing-cotton 
and some other little things, and when she had bought 
them, she handed her bundle to the woman behind the 
counter and asked her if she would not be so good as 
to have that wrapped up with the other things. It 
was a good deal to ask, she knew, and the woman 
smiled, for the articles she had bought would not make 
a package as large as her hand. However, her request 
was complied with, and she took away a very decent 
package, with the card of the store stamped on the 
outside. I suppose that there are not more than half 
a dozen people in this country who would refuse Eu- 
phemia anything that she would be willing to ask for. 

So she took the work home, and she labored faith- 
fully at it for about a week. She did not suppose it 
would take her so long ; but she was not used to such 
very plain sewing, and was much afraid that she 
would not do it neatly enough. Besides this, she 
could only work on it in the daytime,— when I was 
away,— and was, of course, interrupted a great deal by 
her ordinary household duties and the necessity of 
a careful oversight of Pomona’s somewhat erratic 
methods of doing her work. 

But at last she finished the job and took it into the 
city. She did not want to spend any more money on 
the trip than was absolutely necessary, and so was 
very glad to find that she had a remnant of pocket- 
money sufficient to pay her fare both ways. 

When she reached the city, she walked up to the 
46 


RUDDER GRANGE 


place where her work was to be delivered, and found 
it much farther when she went on foot than it had 
seemed to her riding in the street-cars. She handed 
over her bundle to the proper person, and, as it was 
soon examined and approved, she received her pay 
therefor. 

It amounted to sixty cents. She had made no bar- 
gain, but she was a little astonished. However, she 
said nothing, but left the place without asking for 
any more work. In fact, she forgot all about it. She 
had an idea that everything was all wrong, and that 
idea engrossed her mind entirely. There was no mis- 
take about the sum paid, for the lady clerk had 
referred to the printed table of prices when she cal- 
culated the amount due. But something was wrong, 
and at the moment Euphemia could not tell what it 
was. She left the place, and started to walk back to 
the ferry. But she was so tired and weak and hungry 
—it was now an hour or two past her regular luncheon- 
time— that she thought she should faint if she did not 
go somewhere and get some refreshments. 

So, like a sensible little woman as she was, she went 
into a restaurant. She sat down at a table, and a 
waiter came to her to see what she would have. She 
was not accustomed to eating-houses, and perhaps this 
was the first time that she had ever visited one alone. 
What she wanted was something simple. So she or- 
dered a cup of tea and some rolls, and a piece of 
chicken. The meal was a very good one, and Euphe- 
mia enjoyed it. When she had finished she went up 
to the counter to settle. Her bill was sixty cents. 
She paid the money she had just received, and 
walked down to the ferry— all in a daze, she said. 

47 


RUDDER GRANGE 

When she got home she thought it over, and then she 
cried. 

After a while she dried her eyes, and when I came 
home she told me all about it. 

“I give it up,” she said. “I don’t believe I can 
help you any.” 

Poor little thing ! I took her in my arms and com- 
forted her, and before bedtime I had convinced her 
that she was fully able to help me better than any one 
else on earth, and that without puzzling her brains 
about business, or wearing herself out by sewing for 
pay. 

So we went on in our old way, and by keeping our 
attention on onr weekly balance we prevented it from 
growing very rapidly. 

We fell back on our philosophy,— it was all the 
capital we had,— and became as calm and contented 
as circumstances allowed. 


48 


CHAPTER Y 


POMONA PRODUCES A PARTIAL REVOLUTION 
IN RUDDER GRANGE 

Euphemia began to take a great deal of comfort in 
her girl. Every evening she had some new instance 
to relate of Pomona’s inventive abilities and aptness 
in adapting herself to the peculiarities of onr method 
of housekeeping. “Only to think ! ” said she, one 
afternoon. ( ‘ Pomona has j ust done another very smart 
thing. You know what a trouble it has always been 
for us to carry all our waste water up-stairs and throw 
it over the bulwarks. Well, she has remedied all that. 
She has cut a nice little low window in the side of the 
kitchen, and has made a shutter of the piece she cut 
out, with leather hinges to it, and now she can just 
open this window, throw the water out, shut it again, 
and there it is ! I tell you, she’s smart.” 

“Yes, there is no doubt of that,” I said ; “but I 
think that there is danger of her taking more interest 
in such extraordinary and novel duties than in the 
regular work of the house.” 

“Now, don’t discourage the girl, my dear,” she said, 
“for she is of the greatest use to me, and I don’t want 
you to be throwing cold water about like some people.” 

49 


RUDDER GRANGE 

“Not even if 1 throw it out of Pomona’s little door, 
I suppose.” 

“No. Don’t throw it at all. Encourage people. 
What would the world be if everybody chilled our 
aspirations and extraordinary efforts f Like Fulton’s 
steamboat ! ” 

“All right,” I said, “I’ll not discourage her.” 

It was now getting late in the season. It was quite 
too cool to sit out on deck in the evening, and our 
garden began to look desolate. 

Our boarder had wheeled up a lot of fresh earth, 
and had prepared a large bed, in which he had planted 
turnips. They made an excellent fall crop, he as- 
sured us. 

From being simply cool it began to be rainy, and 
the weather grew decidedly unpleasant. But our 
boarder bade us take courage. This was probably 
the “equinoctial,” and when it was over there would 
be a delightful Indian summer, and the turnips would 
grow nicely. 

This sounded very well, but the wind blew up cold 
at night, and there was a great deal of unpleasant 
rain. 

One night it blew what Pomona called a “whirli- 
cane,” and we went to bed very early to keep warm. 
We heard our boarder on deck in the garden after 
we were in bed, and Euphemia said she could not 
imagine what he was about, unless he was anchoring 
his turnips to keep them from blowing away. 

During the night I had a dream. I thought I was 
a boy again, and was trying to stand upon my head, 
a feat for which I had been famous. But instead of 
throwing myself forward on my hands, and then raising 
50 


RUDDER GRANGE 


my heels backward over my bead, in the orthodox 
manner, I was on my back, and trying to get on my 
head from that position. I awoke suddenly, and 
found that the foot-board of the bedstead was much 
higher than onr heads. We were iying on a very 
much inclined plane, with our heads downward. I 
roused Euphemia, and we both got out of bed, when, 
at almost the same moment, we slipped down the 
floor into ever so much water. 

Euphemia was scarcely awake, and she fell down 
gurgling. It was dark, but I heard her fall, and I 
jumped over the bedstead to her assistance. I had 
scarcely raised her up when I heard a pounding at 
the front door, or main-hatchway, and onr boarder 
shouted : 

“Get up ! Come out of that ! Open the door ! 
The old boat’s turning over ! ” 

My heart fell within me, but I clutched Euphemia. 
I said no word, and she simply screamed. I dragged 
her over the floor, sometimes in the water and some- 
times out of it. I got the dining-room door open and 
set her on the stairs. They were in a topsy-turvy 
condition, but they were dry. I found a lantern 
which hung on a nail, with a match-box under it, 
and I struck a light. Then I scrambled back and 
brought her some clothes. 

All this time the boarder was yelling and pounding 
at the door. When Euphemia was ready I opened 
the door and took her out. 

“You go dress yourself,” said the boarder. “I’ll hold 
her here until you come back.” 

I left her and found my clothes, which, chair and 
all, had tumbled against the foot of the bed and so had 
51 


RUDDER GRANGE 


not gone into the water, and soon reappeared on 
deck. The wind was blowing strongly, but it did not 
now seem to be very cold. The deck reminded me of 
the gang-plank of a Harlem steamboat at low tide. 
It was inclined at an angle of more than forty-five 
degrees, I am sure. There was light enough for us to 
see about us, but the scene and all the dreadful cir- 
cumstances made me feel the most intense desire to 
wake up and find it all a dream. There was no doubt, 
however, about the boarder being wide awake. 

“Now, then,” said he, “take hold of her on that side 
and we’ll help her over here. You scramble down on 
that side,— it’s all dry just there ; the boat’s turned 
over toward the water,— and I’ll lower her down to 
you. I’ll let a rope over the sides. You can hold on 
to that as you go down.” 

I got over the bulwarks and let myself down to the 
ground. Then the boarder got Euphemia up and 
slipped her over the side, holding to her hands, and 
letting her gently down until I could reach her. She 
said never a word, but screamed at times. I carried 
her a little way up the shore and set her down. I 
wanted to take her up to a house near by, where we 
bought our milk, but she declined to go until we had 
saved Pomona. 

So I went back to the boat, having carefully 
wrapped up Euphemia, to endeavor to save the girl. 
I found that the boarder had so arranged the gang- 
plank that it was possible, without a very great exer- 
cise of agility, to pass from the shore to the boat. 
When I first saw him, on reaching the shelving deck, 
he was staggering up the stairs with a dining-room 
chair and a large framed engraving of Raphael’s 
52 


RUDDER GRANGE 


“Dante”— an ugly picture, but full of true feeling, at 
least, so Euphemia always declared, though I am not 
quite sure that I know what she meant. 

“Where is Pomona?” I said, endeavoring to stand 
on the hillside of the deck. 

“I don’t know,” said he, “but we must get the 
things out. The tide’s rising and the wind’s getting 
up. The boat will go over before we know it.” 

“But we must find the girl,” I said. “She can’t be 
left to drown.” 

“I don’t think it would matter much,” said he, get- 
ting over the side of the boat with his awkward load. 
“She would be of about as much use drowned as 
any other way. If it hadn’t been for that hole she 
cut in the side of the boat, this would never have 
happened.” 

“You don’t think it was that ! ” I said, holding the 
picture and the chair while he let himself down to 
the gang-plank. 

“Yes, it was,” he replied. “The tide’s very high, 
and the water got over that hole and rushed in. The 
water and the wind will finish this old craft before 
very long.” 

Then he took his load from me and dashed down 
the gang-plank. I went below to look for Pomona. 
The lantern still hung on the nail, and I took it 
down and went into the kitchen. There was Pomona, 
dressed and with her hat on, quietly packing some 
things in a basket. 

“Come, hurry out of this,” I cried. “Don’t you 
know that this house— this boat, I mean— is a wreck ? ” 

“Yes, sma’am,— sir, I mean,— I know it, and I sup 
pose we shall soon be at the mercy of the waves.” 

53 


RUDDER GRANGE 


“Well, then, go as quickly as you can. What are 
you putting in that basket f ” 

“Food,” she said. “We may need it.” 

I took her by the shoulder and hurried her on 
deck, over the bulwark, down the gang-plank, and so 
on to the place where I had left Euphemia. 

I found the dear girl there, quiet and collected, all 
up in a little bunch to shield herself from the wind. 
I wasted no time, but hurried her and Pomona over to 
the house of our milk -merchant. There, with some 
difficulty, I roused the good woman, and after seeing 
Euphemia and Pomona safely in the house, I left 
them to tell the tale, and ran back to the boat. 

The boarder was working like a Trojan, and had 
already a pile of our furniture on the beach. 

I set about helping him, and for an hour we labored 
at this hasty and toilsome moving. It was indeed a 
toilsome business. The floors were shelving, the stairs 
leaned over sidewise ever so far, and the gang-plank 
was desperately short and steep. 

Still, we saved quite a number of household articles. 
Some things we broke and some we forgot, and some 
things were too big to move in this way ; but we did 
very well, considering the circumstances. 

The wind roared, the tide rose, and the boat groaned 
and creaked. We were in the kitchen, trying to take 
the stove apart, for the boarder was sure we could carry 
it up, if we could get the pipe out and the legs and 
doors off, when we heard a crash. We rushed on 
deck, and found that the garden had fallen in ! Mak- 
ing our way as well as we could toward the gaping 
rent in the deck, we saw that the turnip -bed had gone 
down bodily into the boarder’s room. He did not 
54 


RUDDER GRANGE 


hesitate, but scrambled down his narrow stairs. I 
followed him. He struck a match that he had in his 
pocket, and lighted a little lantern that hung under 
the stairs. His room was a perfect rubbish-heap. 
The floor, bed, chairs, pitcher, basin— everything was 
covered or filled with garden mold and turnips. 
Never did I behold such a scene. He stood in the 
midst of it, holding his lantern high above his head. 
At length he spoke. 

“If we had time,” he said, “we might come down 
here and pick out a lot of turnips.” 

“But how about your furniture?” I exclaimed. 

“Oh, that’s ruined ! ” he replied. 

So we did not attempt to save any of it, but we 
got hold of his trunk and carried that on shore. 

When we returned, we found that the water was 
pouring through his partition, making the room a 
lake of mud. And, as the water was rising rapidly 
below, and the boat was keeling over more and 
more, we thought it was time to leave, and we 
left. 

It would not do to go far away from our possessions, 
which were piled up in a sad-looking heap on the 
shore ; and so, after I had gone over to the milk- 
woman’s to assure Euphemia of our safety, the 
boarder and I passed the rest of the night— there was 
not much of it left— in walking up and down the 
beach smoking some cigars which he fortunately had 
in his pocket. 

In the morning I took Euphemia to the hotel, 
about a mile away, and arranged for the storage of 
our furniture there until we could find another habi- 
tation. This habitation, we determined, was to be in 
55 


RUDDER GRANGE 


a substantial bouse, or part of a bouse, which should 
not be affected by tbe tides. 

During tbe morning tbe removal of our effects was 
successfully accomplished, and our boarder went to 
town to look for a furnished room. He bad nothing 
but bis trunk to take to it. 

In tbe afternoon I left Eupbemia at tbe hotel, 
where she was taking a nap,— she certainly needed it, 
for she bad spent tbe night in a wooden rocking-chair 
at tbe milk- woman’s, — and I strolled down to tbe river 
to take a last look at tbe remains of old Eudder 
Grange. 

I felt sad enough as I walked along tbe well-worn 
path to tbe canal-boat, and thought bow it bad been 
worn by my feet more than any other’s, and bow 
gladly I bad walked that way so often during that 
delightful summer. I forgot all that bad been disa- 
greeable, and thought only of tbe happy times we 
bad bad. 

It was a beautiful autumn afternoon, and tbe wind 
bad entirely died away. When I came within sight 
of our old home, it presented a doleful appearance. 
Tbe bow bad drifted out into tbe river, and was 
almost entirely under water. Tbe stern stuck up in 
a mournful and ridiculous manner, with its keel, in- 
stead of its broadside, presented to tbe view of per- 
sons on tbe shore. As I neared tbe boat I beard a 
voice. I stopped and listened. There was no one in 
sight. Could tbe sounds come from tbe boat? I con- 
cluded that it must be so, and I walked up closer. 
Then I beard distinctly tbe words : 

“He grasp ed her by tbe thro at and yell ed , 1 Swear 
to me thou nev er wilt re veal my se cret, or thy hot 
56 


RUDDER GRANGE 


heart’s blood shall stain this mar bel flo or.’ She gave 
one gry vy ous gasp and—” 

It was Pomona ! 

Doubtless she had climbed up the stern of the boat 
and had descended into the depths of the wreck to 
rescue her beloved book, the reading of which had so 
long been interrupted by my harsh decrees. Could I 
break in on this one hour of rapture f I had not the 
heart to do it, and as I slowly moved away, there came 
to me the last words that I ever heard from Rudder 
Grange : 

“And with one wild shry ik to heav en her heart’s 
bio od spat ter ed that prynce ly home of woe—” 


57 


CHAPTER VI 

THE NEW RUDDER GRANGE 

I have before given an account of the difficulties we 
encountered when we started out house-hunting, and 
it was this doleful experience which made Euphemia 
declare that before we set out on a second search for 
a residence we should know exactly what we wanted. 

To do this, we must know how other people lived, we 
must examine into the advantages and disadvantages 
of the various methods of housekeeping, and make up 
our minds on the subject. 

When we came to this conclusion we were in a city 
boarding-house, and were entirely satisfied that this 
style of living did not suit us at all. 

At this juncture I received a letter from the gen- 
tleman who had boarded with us on the canal-boat. 
Shortly after leaving us the previous fall, he had 
married a widow lady with two children, and was 
now keeping house in a French flat in the upper part 
of the city. We had called upon the happy couple 
soon after their marriage, and the letter now re- 
ceived contained an invitation for us to come and 
dine, and spend the night. 

“We’ll go,” said Euphemia. “There’s nothing I 
58 


RUDDER GRANGE 


want so much as to see how people keep house in a 
French flat. Perhaps we’ll like it. And I must see 
those children.” So we went. 

The house, as Euphemia remarked, was anything 
but flat. It was very tall indeed— the tallest house 
in the neighborhood. We entered the vestibule, the 
outer door being open, and beheld, on one side of us, a 
row of bell-handles. Above each of these handles was 
the mouth of a speaking-tube, and above each of 
these a little glazed frame containing a visiting-card. 

“ Isn’t this cute?” said Euphemia, reading over the 
cards. “ Here’s his name, and this is his bell and 
tube ! Which would you do first, ring or blow? ” 

“My dear,” said I, “you don’t blow up those tubes. 
We must ring the bell, just as if it were an ordinary 
front-door bell, and instead of coming to the door, 
some one will call down the tube to us.” 

I rang the bell under the boarder’s name, and very 
soon a voice at the tube said : 

“Well?” 

Then I told our names, and in an instant the front 
door opened. 

“Why, their flat must be right here,” whispered 
Euphemia. “How quickly the girl came!” She 
looked for the girl as we entered, but there was no 
one there. 

“Their flat is on the fifth story,” said I. “He men- 
tioned that in his letter. We would better shut the 
door and go up.” 

Up and up the softly carpeted stairs we climbed, 
and not a soul we saw or heard. 

“It is like an enchanted cavern,” said Euphemia. 
“You say the magic word, the door in the rock opens, 
59 


RUDDER GRANGE 

and you go on and on through the vaulted pas- 
sages— ^ 

“ Until you come to the ogre/’ said the boarder, 
who was standing at the top of the stairs. He did 
not behave at all like an ogre, for he was very glad 
to see us, and so was his wife. After we had settled 
down in the parlor, and the boarder’s wife had gone 
to see about something concerning the dinner, Euphe- 
mia asked after the children. 

“I hope they haven’t gone to bed,” she said, “for I 
do so want to see the dear little things.” 

The ex-boarder, as Euphemia called him, smiled 
grimly. 

“They’re not so very little,” he said. “My wife’s 
son is nearly grown. He is at an academy in Con- 
necticut, and he expects to go into a civil engineer’s 
office in the spring. His sister is older than he is. 
My wife married— in the first instance— when she was 
very young— very young indeed.” 

“Oh ! ” said Euphemia ; and then, after a pause, 
“And neither of them is at home now?” 

“Ho,” said the ex-boarder. “By the way, what do 
you think of this dado ? It is a portable one ; I de- 
vised it myself. You can take it away with you to 
another house when you move. But there is the 
dinner-bell. I’ll show you over the establishment 
after we have had something to eat.” 

After our meal we made a tour of inspection. The 
flat, which included the whole floor, contained nine 
or ten rooms, of all shapes and sizes. The corners in 
some of the rooms were cut off and shaped up into 
closets and recesses, so that Euphemia said the corners 
of every room were in some other room. 

60 


RUDDER GRANGE 


Near the back of the flat was a dumb-waiter, with 
bells and speaking-tubes. When the butcher, the 
baker, or the kerosene-lamp maker, came each morn- 
ing, he rang the bell and called up the tube to know 
what was wanted. The order was called down, and 
he brought the things in the afternoon. 

All this greatly charmed Euphemia. It was so cute ? 
so complete. There were no interviews with dis- 
agreeable tradespeople, none of the ordinary annoy- 
ances of housekeeping. Everything seemed to be 
done with a bell, a speaking-tube, or a crank. 

“Indeed,” said the ex-boarder, “if it were not for 
people tripping over the wires, I could rig up attach- 
ments by which I could sit in the parlor, and by 
using pedals and a keyboard, I could do all the 
work of this house without getting out of my easy- 
chair.” 

One of the most peculiar features of the establish- 
ment was the servant’s room. This was at the rear 
end of the floor, and as there was not much space left 
after the other rooms had been made, it was very 
small— so small, indeed, that it would accommodate 
only a very short bedstead. This made it necessary 
for our friends to consider the size of the servant 
when they engaged her. 

“There were several excellent girls at the intelli- 
gence office where I called,” said the ex-boarder, “but 
I measured them, and they were all too tall. So we 
had to take a short one who is only so-so. There was 
one big Scotch girl who was the very person for us, 
and I would have taken her if my wife had not ob- 
jected to my plan for her accommodation.” 

“What was that? ” I asked. 


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“Well,” said he, “I first thought of cutting a hole 
in the partition wall at the foot of the bed, for her to 
put her feet through.” 

“Never!” said his wife, emphatically. “I would 
never have allowed that.” 

“And then,” continued he, “I thought of turning 
the bed around, and cutting a larger hole, through 
which she might have put her head into the little 
room on this side. A low table could have stood 
under the hole, and her head might have rested on a 
cushion on the table very comfortably.” 

“My dear,” said his wife, “it would have frightened 
me to death to go into that room and see that head on 
a cushion on a table—” 

“Like John the Baptist,” interrupted Euphemia. 

“Well,” said our ex-boarder, “the plan would have 
had its advantages.” 

“Oh ! ” cried Euphemia, looking out of a back 
window. “What a lovely little iron balcony ! Do 
you sit out there on warm evenings ? ” 

“That’s a fire-escape,” said the ex-boarder. “We 
don’t go out there unless it is very hot indeed, on ac- 
count of the house being on fire. You see, there is a 
little door in the floor of the balcony, and an iron 
ladder leading to the balcony beneath, and so on, 
down to the first story.” 

“And you have to creep through that hole and go 
down that dreadful steep ladder every time there is a 
fire?” said Euphemia. 

“Well, I think we would never go down but once,” 
he answered. 

“No, indeed,” said Euphemia, “you’d fall down 
and break your neck the first time ; ” and she turned 
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RUDDER GRANGE 

away from the window with a very grave expression 
on her face. 

Soon after this our hostess conducted Euphemia to 
the guest-chamber, while her husband and I finished 
a bedtime cigar. 

When I joined Euphemia in her room, she met 
me with a mysterious expression on her face. She 
shut the door, and then said in a very earnest 
tone : 

“Do you see that little bedstead in the corner? I 
did not notice it until I came in just now, and then, 
being quite astonished, I said, ‘Why, here’s a child’s 
bed 5 who sleeps here?’ ‘Oh,’ said she, ‘that’s our 
little Adele’s bedstead. We have it in our room when 
she’s here.’ ‘Little Adele!’ said I. ‘I didn’t know 
she was little— not small enough for that bed, at any 
rate.’ ‘Why, yes,’ said she, ‘Adele is only four years 
old. The bedstead is quite large enough for her.’ 
‘ And she is not here now ? ’ I said, utterly amazed at 
all this. ‘No,’ she answered; ‘she is not here now; 
but we try to have her with us as much as we can, 
and always keep her little bed ready for her.’ ‘I 
suppose she’s with her father’s people,’ I said, and she 
answered, ‘Oh, yes,’ and bade me good night. What 
does all this mean? Our boarder told us that the 
daughter is grown up, and here his wife declares that 
she is only four years old ! I don’t know what in the 
world to make of this mystery ! ” 

I could give Euphemia no clew. I supposed there 
was some mistake, and that was all I could say, except 
that I was sleepy, and that we could find out all 
about it in the morning. But Euphemia could not 
dismiss the subject from her mind. She said no more, 
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RUDDER GRANGE 


but I could see, until I fell asleep, that she was 
thinking about it. 

It must have been about the middle of the night, 
perhaps later, when I was suddenly awakened by 
Euphemia starting up in the bed with the exclama- 
tion : 

“I have it!” 

“What?” I cried, sitting up in a great hurry. 
“What is it? What have you got? What’s the 
matter?” 

“I know it ! ” she said, “I know it ! Our boarder is 
a grandfather ! Little Adele is the grown-up daugh- 
ter’s child. He was quite particular to say that his 
wife married very young. Just to think of it ! Bo 
short a time ago he was living with us, a bachelor ; 
and now, in four short months, he is a grandfather ! ” 

Carefully propounded inquiries, in the morning, 
proved Euphemia’s conclusions to be correct. 

The next evening, when we were quietly sitting in 
our own room, Euphemia remarked that she did not 
wish to have anything to do with French flats. 

“They seem to be very convenient,” I said. 

“Oh, yes, convenient enough, but I don’t like them. 
I would hate to live where everything let down like 
a table-lid, or else turned with a crank. And when 
I think of those fire-escapes and the boarder’s grand- 
child, it makes me feel very unpleasant.” 

“But the grandchild doesn’t follow as a matter of 
course,” said I. 

“No,” she answered, “but I shall never like French 
flats.” 

And we discussed them no more. 

For some weeks we examined into every style of 
64 


RUDDER GRANGE 


economic and respectable housekeeping, and many 
methods of living in what Euphemia called “ imita- 
tion comfort ” were set aside as unworthy of considera- 
tion. 

“My dear,” said Euphemia, one evening, “what we 
really ought to do is to build. Then we would have 
exactly the house we want.” 

“Very true,” I replied; “but to build a house a 
man must have money.” 

“Oh, no ! ” SMd she, “or, at least, not much. For one 
thing, you might join a building association. In some 
of those societies I know that you only have to pay a 
dollar a week.” 

“But do you suppose the association builds houses 
for all its members ? ” I asked. 

“Of course I suppose so. Else why is it called a 
building association?” 

I had read a good deal about these organizations, 
and I explained to Euphemia that a dollar a week was 
never received by any of them in payment for a new 
house. 

“Then build yourself,” she said. “I know how that 
can be done.” 

“Oh, it’s easy enough,” I remarked, “if you have 
the money.” 

“hTo, you needn’t have any money,” said Euphemia, 
rather hastily. “Just let me show you. Supposing, 
for instance, that you want to build a house worth, 
well, say twenty thousand dollars, in some pretty town 
near the city.” 

“I would rather figure on a cheaper house than 
that for a country place,” I interrupted. 

“Well, then, say two thousand dollars. You get 
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RUDDER GRANGE 


masons, and carpenters, and people to dig the cellar, 
and you engage them to build your house. You 
needn’t pay them until it’s done, of course. Then, 
when it’s all finished, borrow two thousand dollars 
and give the house as security. After that, you see, 
you have only to pay the interest on the borrowed 
money. When you save enough money to pay back 
the loan, the house is your own. Now, isn’t that a 
good plan? ” 

“Yes,” said I, “if there could be found people who 
would build your house and wait for their money until 
some one would lend you its full value on a mortgage.” 

“Well,” said Euphemia, “I guess they could be 
found, if you would only look for them.” 

“I’ll look for them when I go to heaven,” I said. 

We gave up, for the present, the idea of building or 
buying a house, and determined to rent a small place 
in the country, and then, as Euphemia wisely said, if 
we liked it we might buy it. After she had dropped 
her building projects she thought that one ought to 
know just how a house would suit before having it on 
one’s hands. 

We could afford something better than a canal-boat 
now, and therefore we were not so restricted as in our 
first search for a house. But the one thing which 
troubled my wife, and, indeed, caused me much anx- 
ious thought, was that scourge of almost all rural 
localities— tramps. It would be necessary for me to 
be away all day, and we could not afford to keep a 
man; so we must be careful to get a house some- 
where off the line of ordinary travel, or else in a well- 
settled neighborhood, where there would be some one 
near at hand in case of unruly visitors. 

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RUDDER GRANGE 


“ A village I don’t like/’ said Euphemia. “There is 
always so much gossip, and people know all about 
what you have and what you do. And yet, it would 
be very lonely, and perhaps dangerous, for us to live 
off somewhere, all by ourselves. There is another 
objection to a village. We don’t want a house with 
a small yard and a garden at the back. We ought to 
have a dear little farm, with some fields for corn, and 
a cow, and a barn, and things of that sort. All that 
would be lovely. I’ll tell you what we want,” she 
cried, seized with a sudden inspiration : “we ought to 
try to get the end house of a village. Then our house 
could be near the neighbors, and our farm could 
stretch out a little way into the country beyond us. 
Let us fix our minds upon such a house, and I believe 
we can get it.” 

So we fixed our minds ; but in the course of a week 
or two we unfixed them several times to allow the 
consideration of places which otherwise would have 
been out of range ; and during one of these intervals 
of mental disfixment we took a house. 

It was not the end house of a village, but it was in 
the outskirts of a very small rural settlement. Our 
nearest neighbor was within vigorous shouting dis- 
tance, and the house suited us so well in other re- 
spects that we concluded that this would do. The 
house was small, but large enough. There were some 
trees around it, and a little lawn in front. There was 
a garden, a small barn and stable, a pasture-field, and 
land enough besides for small patches of corn and 
potatoes. The rent was low, the water good, and no 
one can imagine how delighted we were. 

We did not furnish the whole house at first- but 
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RUDDER GRANGE 


wliat mattered it? We had no horse nor cow, but the 
pasture and barn were ready for them. We did not 
propose to begin with everything at once. 

Our first evening in that house was made up of 
hours of unalloyed bliss. We walked from room to 
room ; we looked out on the garden and the lawn ,* 
we sat on the little porch while I smoked. 

“We were happy at Rudder Grange/ 7 said Euphe- 
mia ; “but that was only a canal -boat, and could not, 
in the nature of things, have been a permanent home. 77 

“No, 77 said I, “it could not have been permanent $ 
but in many respects it was a delightful home. The 
very name of it brings pleasant thoughts. 77 

“It was a nice name, 77 said Euphemia, “and I 7 11 tell 
you what we might do : let us call this place 1 Rudder 
Grange 7 —the 1 New Rudder Grange 7 ! The name will 
do just as well for a house as for a boat. 77 

I agreed on the spot, and the house was christened. 

Our household was small : we had a servant— a 
German woman— and we had ourselves ; that was all. 

I did not do much in the garden ; it was too late in 
the season. The former occupant had planted some 
corn and potatoes, with a few other vegetables, and 
these I weeded and hoed, working early in the morn- 
ing and when I came home in the afternoon. Euphe- 
mia tied up the rose-vines, trimmed the bushes, and 
with a little rake and hoe she prepared a flower-bed 
in front of the parlor window. This exercise gave us 
splendid appetites, and we loved our new home more 
and more. 

Our German girl did not suit us exactly at first, 
and day by day she grew to suit us less. She was a 
quiet, kindly, pleasant creature, and delighted in an 
68 


RUDDER GRANGE 


out-of-door life. She was as willing to weed in the 
garden as she was to cook or wash. At first I was 
very much pleased with this, because, as I remarked 
to Euphemia, you can find very few girls who would 
be willing to work in the garden, and she might be 
made very useful. 

But after a time Euphemia began to get a little 
out of patience with her. She worked out of doors 
entirely too much. And what she did there, as well 
as some of her work in the house, was very much like 
certain German literature— you did not know how it 
was done, or what it was for. 

One afternoon I found Euphemia quite annoyed. 

“Look here,” she said, “and see what that girl has 
been at work at nearly all this afternoon. I was 
up-stairs sewing, and thought she was ironing. Isn’t it 
too provoking ? ” 

It was provoking. The contemplative German had 
collected a lot of short ham-bones,— where she found 
them I cannot imagine,— and had made of them a 
border around my wife’s flower-bed. The bones stuck 
up straight a few inches above the ground all along 
the edge of the bed, and the marrow cavity of each 
one was filled with earth in which she had planted 
seeds. 

“ 1 These,’ she says, ‘will spring up and look beauti- 
ful,’ ” said Euphemia. “They have that style of thing 
in her country.” 

“Then let her take them off with her to her coun- 
try ! ” I exclaimed. 

“No, no,” said Euphemia, hurriedly, “don’t kick 
them out. It would only wound her feelings. She 
did it all for the best, and thought it would please me 
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RUDDER GRANGE 


to have such a border around my bed. But she is too 
independent, and neglects her proper work. I will 
give her a week’s notice and get another servant. 
When she goes we can take these horrid bones 
away. But I hope nobody will call on us in the 
meantime.” 

“Must we keep these things here a whole week? ” I 
asked. 

“Oh, I can’t turn her away without giving her a 
fair notice. That would be cruel.” 

I saw the truth of the remark, and determined to 
bear with the bones and her rather than be unkind. 

That night Euphemia informed the girl of her de- 
cision, and the next morning, soon after I had left, the 
good German appeared with her bonnet on and her 
carpet-bag in her hand, to take leave of her mistress. 

“What!” cried Euphemia. “You are not going 
to-day?” 

“If it is goot to go at all, it is goot to go now,” said 
the girl. 

“And you will go off and leave me without any one 
in the house, after my putting myself out to give you 
a fair notice ? It’s shameful ! ” 

“I think it is very goot for me to go now,” quietly 
replied the girl. “This house is very loneful. I will 
go to-morrow in the city to see your husband for my 
money. Goot morning.” And off she trudged to the 
station. 

Before I reached the house that afternoon, Euphe- 
mia rushed out to tell this story. I would not like to 
say how far I kicked those ham-bones. 

This German girl had several successors, and some 
of them suited as badly and left as abruptly as herself $ 
70 


RUDDER GRANGE 


but Euphemia never forgot the ungrateful stab given 
her by this “ham-bone girl,” as she always called her. 
It was her first wound of the kind, and it came in the 
very beginning of the campaign, when she was all 
unused to this domestic warfare. 


71 


CHAPTER VII 


TREATING OF AN UNSUCCESSFUL BROKER 
AND A DOG 

It was a couple of weeks, or thereabouts, after this 
episode that Euphemia came down to the gate to meet 
me on my return from the city. I noticed a very 
peculiar expression on her face. She looked both 
thoughtful and pleased. Almost the first words she 
said to me were these : 

“A tramp came here to-day.” 

“I am sorry to hear that,” I exclaimed. “That’s 
the worst news I have had yet. I did hope that we 
were far enough from the line of travel to escape 
these scourges. How did you get rid of him? Was 
he impertinent?” 

“You must not feel that way about all tramps,” said 
she. “Sometimes they are deserving of our charity, 
and ought to be helped. There is a great difference 
in them.” 

“That may be,” I said; “but what of this one? 
When was he here, and when did he go ? ” 

“He did not go at all. He is here now.” 

“Here now ! ” I cried. “Where is he? ” 

“Do not call out so loudly,” said Euphemia, putting 
72 


RUDDER GRANGE 

her hand on my arm. “You will waken him. He is 
asleep.” 

“Asleep ! ” said I. “A tramp ? Here ? ” 

“Yes. Stop 5 let me tell you about him. He told 
me his story, and it is a sad one. He is a middle-aged 
man,— fifty, perhaps,— and has been rich. He was once 
a broker in Wall Street, but lost money by the fail- 
ure of various railroads— the Camden and Amboy, for 
one.” 

“That hasn’t failed,” I interrupted. 

“Well, then it was the Northern Pacific, or some 
other one of them,— at any rate, I know it was either a 
railroad or a bank, — and he soon became very poor. 
He has a son in Cincinnati, who is a successful mer- 
chant, and lives in a fine house, with horses and car- 
riages, and all that, and this poor man has written to 
his son, but has never had any answer. So now he is 
going to walk to Cincinnati to see him. He knows 
he will not be turned away if he can once meet his 
son face to face. He was very tired when he stopped 
here,— and he has ever and ever so far to walk yet, 
you know,— and so after I had given him something 
to eat I let him lie down in the outer kitchen, on that 
roll of rag-carpet that is there. I spread it out for 
him. It is a hard bed for one who has known com- 
fort, but he seems to sleep soundly.” 

“Let me see him,” said I, and I walked back to the 
outer kitchen. 

There lay the unsuccessful broker, fast asleep. His 
face, which was turned toward me as I entered, showed 
that it had been many days since he had been shaved, 
and his hair had apparently been uncombed for about 
the same length of time. His clothes were very old, 
73 


RUDDER GRANGE 

and a good deal torn, and he wore one boot and one 
shoe. 

“Whew!” said I. “Have yon been giving him 
whiskey?” 

“Ho,” whispered Enphemia, “of course not. I 
noticed that smell, and he said he had been cleaning 
his clothes with alcohol.” 

“They needed it, I’m sure,” I remarked as I turned 
away. “And now,” said I, “where’s the girl ? ” 

“This is her afternoon out. What is the matter? 
You look frightened.” 

“Oh, I’m not frightened, but I find I must go down 
to the station again. Just run up and put on your 
bonnet. It will be a nice little walk for you.” 

I had been rapidly revolving the matter in my 
mind. What was I to do with this wretch who was 
now asleep in my outer kitchen? If I woke him up 
and drove him off,— and I might have difficulty in 
doing it,— there was every reason to believe that he 
would not go far, but return at night and commit 
some revengeful act. I never saw a more sinister- 
looking fellow. And he was certainly drunk. He 
must not be allowed to wander about our neighbor- 
hood. I would go for the constable and have him 
arrested. 

So I locked the door from the kitchen into the 
house, and then the outside door of the kitchen, and 
when my wife came down we hurried off. On the 
way I told her what I intended to do, and what I 
thought of our guest. She answered scarcely a word, 
and I hoped that she was frightened. I think she was. 

The constable, who was also coroner of our town- 
ship, had gone to a creek three miles away to hold 
74 


RUDDER GRANGE 


an inquest, and there was nobody to arrest the man. 
The nearest police station was at Hackingford, six 
miles away, on the railroad. I held a consultation 
with the station master and the gentleman who kept 
the grocery store opposite. 

They could think of nothing to be done except to 
shoot the man, and to that I objected. 

“However,” said I, “he can’t stay there ; ” and a 
happy thought just then striking me, I called to the 
boy who drove the village express- wagon, and engaged 
him for a job. The wagon was standing at the station, 
and to save time I got in and rode to my house. Eu- 
phemia went over to call on the groceryman’s wife 
until I returned. 

I had determined that the man should be taken 
away, although, until I was riding home, I had not 
made up my mind where to have him taken. But on 
the road I settled this matter. 

On reaching the house, we drove into the yard as 
close to the kitchen as we could go. Then I unlocked 
the door, and the boy— who was a big, strapping fellow 
— entered with me. We found the ex-broker still 
wrapped in the soundest slumber. Leaving the boy 
to watch him, I went up -stairs and got a baggage tag, 
which I directed to the chief of police at the police 
station in Hackingford. I returned to the kitchen, 
and fastened this tag conspicuously on the lapel of 
the sleeper’s coat. Then, with a clothes-line, I tied 
him up carefully, hand and foot. To all this he 
offered not the slightest opposition. When he was 
suitably packed, with due regard to the probable 
tenderness of wrist and ankle in one brought up in 
luxury, the boy and I carried him to the wagon. 

75 


RUDDER GRANGE 

He was a heavy load, and we may have bumped 
him a little, but his sleep was not disturbed. Then 
we drove him to the express office. This was at the 
railroad-station, and the station master was also ex- 
press agent. At first he was not inclined to receive 
my parcel ; but when I assured him that all sorts of 
live things were sent by express, and that I could see 
no reason for making an exception in this case, he 
added my arguments to his own disposition as a 
householder to see the goods forwarded to their 
destination, and so gave me a receipt, and pasted a 
label on the ex-broker’s shoulder. I set no value on 
the package, which I prepaid. 

“Now, then,” said the station master, “he’ll go all 
right, if the express agent on the train will take 
him.” 

This matter was soon settled, for in a few minutes 
the train stopped at the station. My package was 
wheeled to the express-car, and two porters, who en- 
tered heartily into the spirit of the thing, hoisted it 
into the car. The train agent, who just then noticed 
the character of the goods, began to declare that he 
would not have the fellow in his car j but my friend 
the station master shouted out that everything was all 
right,— the man was properly packed, invoiced, and 
paid for,— and the train, which was behind time, moved 
away before the irate agent could take measures to 
get rid of his unwelcome freight. 

“Now,” said I, “there’ll be a drunken man at the 
police station in Hackingford in about half an hour. 
His offense will be as evident there as here, and they 
can do what they please with him. I shall telegraph 
to explain the matter and prepare them for his arrival.” 

76 


RUDDER GRANGE 


When I had done this Euphemia and I went home. 
The tramp had cost me some money, but I was well 
satisfied with my evening’s work, and felt that the 
township owed me at least a vote of thanks. 

But I firmly made np my mind that Euphemia 
should never again be left unprotected. I would not 
even trust to a servant who would agree to have no 
afternoons out. I would get a dog. 

The next day I advertised for a fierce watch-dog, 
and in the course of a week I got one. Before I pro- 
cured him I examined into the merits and price of 
about one hundred dogs. My dog was named Pete, 
but I determined to make a change in that respect. 
He was a very tall, bony, powerful beast, of a dull 
black color, and with a lower jaw that would crack 
the hind leg of an ox, so I was informed. He was of 
a varied breed, and the good Irishman of whom I 
bought him said he had fine blood in him, and at- 
tempted to refer him back to the different classes of 
dogs from which he had been derived. But after I 
had had him awhile, I made an analysis based on his 
appearance and character, and concluded that he was 
mainly bloodhound, shaded with wolf-dog and mastiff, 
and picked out with touches of bulldog. 

The man brought him home for me, and chained 
him up in an unused woodshed, for I had no dog- 
house as yet. 

“Now, thin,” said he, “all you’ve got to do is to 
keep ’im chained up there for three or four days till 
he gets used to ye. An’ I’ll tell ye the best way to 
make a dog like ye. Jist give him a good lickin’. 
Then he’ll know yer his master, an’ he’ll like ye iver 
aftherward. There’s plenty of people that don’t know 
77 


RUDDER GRANGE 


that. And, by the way, sir, that chain’s none too 
strong for ’ini. I got it when he wasn’t mor’n half 
grown. Ye’d betther git him a new one.” 

When the man had gone, I stood and looked at the 
dog, and could not help hoping that he would learn to 
like me without the intervention of a thrashing. Such 
harsh methods were not always necessary, I felt sure. 

After our evening meal— a combination of dinner 
and supper, of which Euphemia used to say that she 
did not know whether to call it dinper or supner— we 
went out together to look at our new guardian. 

Euphemia was charmed with him. 

“How massive ! ” she exclaimed. “What splendid 
limbs ! And look at that immense head ! I know I 
shall never be afraid now. I feel he is a dog I can 
rely upon. Make him stand up, please, so I can see 
how tall he is.” 

“I think it would be better not to disturb him,” I 
answered ; “he may be tired. He will get up of his 
own accord very soon. And, indeed, I hope that he 
will not get up until I go to the store and get him a 
new chain.” 

As I said this I made a step forward to look at his 
chain, and at that instant a low growl, like the first 
rumblings of an earthquake, ran through the dog. 

I stepped back again, and walked over to the village 
for the chain. The dog- chains shown me at the store all 
seemed too short and too weak, and I concluded to buy 
two chains, such as are used for hitching horses, and to 
join them so as to make a long as well as a strong one 
of them. I wanted him to be able to come out of the 
woodshed when it should be necessary to show himself. 

On my way home with my purchase the thought 
78 


RUDDER GRANGE 

suddenly struck me, How will you put that chain on 
your dog? The memory of the rumbling growl was 
still vivid. 

I never put the chain on him. As I approached 
him with it in my hand, he rose to his feet, his eyes 
sparkled, his black lips drew back from his mighty 
teeth, he gave one savage bark, and sprang at me. 

His chain held, and I went into the house. That 
night he broke loose and went home to his master, 
who lived fully ten miles away. 

When I found in the morning that he was gone, I 
was in doubt whether it would be better to go and 
look for him or not. But I concluded to keep up a 
brave heart, and found him, as I expected, at the 
place where I had bought him. The Irishman took 
him to my house again, and I had to pay for the man’s 
loss of time as well as for his fare on the railroad. 
But the dog’s old master chained him up with the 
new chain, and I felt repaid for my outlay. 

Every morning and night I fed that dog, and I 
spoke as kindly and gently to him as I knew how. 
But he seemed to cherish a distaste for me, and always 
greeted me with a growl. He was an awful dog. 

About a ^eek after the arrival of this animal, I was 
astonished and frightened, on nearing the house, to 
hear a scream from my wife. I rushed into the yard, 
and was greeted with a succession of screams from 
two voices, that seemed to come from the vicinity of 
the woodshed. Hurrying thither, I perceived Eu- 
phemia standing on the roof of the shed in perilous 
proximity to the edge, while near the ridge of the 
roof sat our hired girl with her handkerchief over her 
head. 


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RUDDER GRANGE 


“Hurry, hurry ! ” cried Euphemia. “Climb up 
here ! The dog is loose ! Be quick ! Be quick ! 
Oh ! he’s coming, he’s coming ! ” 

I asked for no explanation. There was a rail fence 
by the side of the shed, and I sprang on this, and was 
on the roof just as the dog came bounding and barking 
from the barn. 

Instantly Euphemia had me in her arms, and we 
came very near going off the roof together. 

“I never feared to have you come home before,” she 
sobbed. “I thought he would tear you limb from limb.” 

“But how did all this happen?” said I. 

“Och ! I kin hardly remember,” said the girl from 
under her handkerchief. 

“Well, I didn’t ask you,” I said, somewhat too 
sharply. 

“Oh, I’ll tell you,” said Euphemia. “There was a 
man at the gate, and he looked suspicious and didn’t 
try to come in, and Mary was at the barn looking for 
an egg, and I thought this was a good time to see 
whether the dog was a good watch-dog or not, so I 
went and unchained him — ” 

“Did you unchain that dog?” I cried. 

“Yes, and the minute he was loose he made a rush 
at the gate ,* but the man was gone before he got there, 
and as he ran down the road I saw that he was Mr. 
Henderson’s man, who was coming here on an errand, 
I expect ; and then I went down to the barn to get 
Mary to come and help me chain up the dog, and when 
she came out he began to chase me and then her ; and 
we were so frightened that we climbed up here, and I 
don’t know, I’m sure, how I ever got up that fence ; 
and do you think he can climb up here ? ” 

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“Oh, no, my dear,” I said. 

“An’ he’s just the beast to go afther a stip -ladder,” 
said the girl, in muffled tones. 

“ And what are we to do ? ” asked Euphemia. “We 
can’t eat and sleep up here. Don’t you think that if 
we were all to shout out together we could make some 
neighbor hear ? ” 

“Oh, yes ! ” I said, “there is no doubt of it. But then, 
if a neighbor came, the dog would fall on him—” 

“And tear him limb from limb,” interrupted Eu- 
phemia. 

“Yes, and besides, my dear, I should hate to have 
any of the neighbors come and find us all up here. It 
would look so utterly absurd. Let me try to think 
of some other plan.” 

“Well, please be as quick as you can. It’s dreadful 
to be— who’s that? ” 

I looked up and saw a female figure just entering 
the yard. 

“Oh, what shall we do?” exclaimed Euphemia. 
“The dog will get her. Call to her ! ” 

“No, no,” said I, “don’t make a noise. It will only 
bring the dog. He seems to have gone to the barn 
or somewhere. Keep perfectly quiet, and she may 
go up on the porch ; and as the front door is not 
locked, she may rush into the house if she sees him 
coming.” 

“I do hope she will do that,” said Euphemia, anx- 
iously. 

“And yet,” said I, “it’s not pleasant to have stran- 
gers going into the house when there’s no one there.” 

“But it’s better than seeing a stranger torn to pieces 
before your eyes,” said Euphemia. 

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“Yes,” I replied, “it is. Don’t you think we might 
get down now ? The dog isn’t here.” 

“No, no!” cried Euphemia. “There he is now, 
coming this way. And look at that woman ! She is 
coming right to this shed.” 

Sure enough, our visitor had passed by the front 
door, and was walking toward us. Evidently she had 
heard our voices. 

“Don’t come here!” cried Euphemia. “You’ll be 
killed ! Run ! run ! The dog is coming ! Why, 
mercy on us ! It’s Pomona ! ” 


82 


CHAPTER VIII 


POMONA ONCE MOKE 

Suke enough, it was Pomona. There stood our old 
servant-girl of the canal-boat, with a crooked straw 
bonnet on her head, a faded yellow parasol in her 
hand, a parcel done up in newspaper under her arm, 
and an expression of astonishment on her face. 

“Well, truly ! ” she ejaculated. 

“Into the house, quick ! ” I said. “We have a sav- 
age dog ! ” 

“And here he is ! ” cried Euphemia. “Oh, she will 
be torn to atoms ! ” 

Straight at Pomona came the great black beast, 
barking furiously. But the girl did not move ; she 
did not even turn her head to look at the dog, who 
stopped before he reached her, and began to rush 
wildly around her, barking terribly. 

We held our breath. I tried to say “Get out ! ” or 
“Lie down ! ” but my tongue could not form the words. 

“Can’t you get up here?” gasped Euphemia. 

“I don’t want to,” said the girl. 

The dog now stopped barking, and stood looking at 
Pomona, occasionally glancing up at us. Pomona took 
not the slightest notice of him. 

“Do you know, ma’am,” said she to Euphemia, 
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“that if I had come here yesterday that dog would 
have had my life’s blood.” 

“ And why don’t he have it to-day?” said Euphe- 
mia, who, with myself, was utterly amazed at the be- 
havior of the dog. 

“Because I know more to-day than I did yester- 
day,” answered Pomona. “It is only this afternoon 
that I read something, as I was coming here on the cars. 
This is it,” she continued, unwrapping her paper par- 
cel and taking from it one of the two books it con- 
tained. “I finished this part just as the cars stopped, 
and I put my scissors in the place ; I’ll read it to you.” 

Standing there with one book still under her arm, 
the newspaper, half unwrapped from it, hanging down 
and flapping in the breeze, she opened the other vol- 
ume at the scissors place, turned back a page or two, 
and began to read as follows : 

“Lord Edward slowly san-ter-ed up the bro-ad anc-es- 
tral walk, when sudden-ly from out a cop-se, there sprang 
a fur-i-ous hound. The marsh-man, con-ce-al-ed in a tree 
expected to see the life’s blood of the young nob-le-man 
stain the path. But no, Lord Edward did not stop nor 
turn his head. With a smile, he strode stead-i-ly on. 
Well he knew that if by be-traying no em-otion, he could 
show the dog that he was walking where he had a right, 
the bru-te would re-cog-nize that right and let him pass 
un-sca-thed. Thus in this moment of peril his nob-le 
courage saved him. The hound, abashed, returned to 
his cov-ert, and Lord Edward pass-ed on. 

“ ‘Foi-led again,’ mutter-ed the marsh-man.” 

“Now, then,” said Pomona, closing the book, “you 
see, I remembered that the minute I saw the dog com- 
ing, and I didn’t betray any emotion. Yesterday, 
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RUDDER GRANGE 

now, wlien I didn’t know it, I’d ’a’ been sure to betray 
emotion, and be would have bad my life’s blood. Did 
be drive you up there ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Eupbemia ; and she hastily explained 
the situation. 

“Then I guess I’d better chain him up,” remarked 
Pomona ; and, advancing to the dog, she took him boldly 
by the collar and pulled him toward the shed. The 
animal hung back at first, but soon followed her, and 
she chained him up securely. 

“Now you can come down,” said Pomona. 

I assisted Euphemia to the ground, and Pomona 
persuaded the hired girl to descend. 

“Will he grab me by the leg?” asked the girl. 

“No ; get down, gump,” said Pomona $ and down 
she scrambled. 

We took Pomona into the house with us, and asked 
her news of herself. 

“Well,” said she, “there ain’t much to tell. I stayed 
awhile at the institution ; but I didn’t get much good 
there— only I learned to read to myself, because if I 
read out loud they came and took the book away. 
Then I left there and went to live out. But the woman 
was awful mean. She throwed away one of my books 
and I was only half through it. It was a real good 
book, named ‘The Bridal Corpse, or Montregor’s 
Curse,’ and I had to pay for it at the circulatin’ 
library. So I left her quick enough, and then I went 
on the stage.” 

“On the stage ! ” cried Euphemia. “What did you 
do on the stage f ” 

“Scrub,” replied Pomona. “You see I thought 
if I could get anything to do at the theayter, I could 
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RUDDER GRANGE 


work my way up, so I was glad to get scrubbing. I 
asked the prompter, one morning if he thought there 
was a chance for me to work up, and he said yes, I 
might scrub the galleries ; and then I told him that 
I didn’t want none of his lip, and I pretty soon left 
that place. I heard you was a-keepin’ house out 
here, and so I thought I’d come along and see you, 
and, if you hadn’t no girl, I’d like to live with you 
again ; and I guess you might as well take me, for that 
other girl said, when she got down from the shed, that 
she was goin’ away to-morrow— she wouldn’t stay in 
no house where they kept such a dog ; though I told 
her I guessed he was only cuttin’ round because he 
was so glad to get loose.” 

“ Cutting around ! ” exclaimed Euphemia. “It was 
nothing of the kind. If you had seen him you would 
have known better. But did you come now to stay? 
Where are your things ? ” 

“On me,” replied Pomona. 

When Euphemia found that the Irish girl really 
intended to leave, we consulted together, and con- 
cluded to engage Pomona. I went so far as to agree 
to carry her books to and from the circulating library 
to which she subscribed, hoping thereby to be able to 
exercise some influence on her taste. Thus part of 
the old family of Rudder Grange had come together 
again. True, the boarder was away, but as Pomona 
remarked when she heard about him, “You couldn’t 
always expect to ever regain the ties that had always 
bound everybody.” 

Our delight and interest in our little farm increased 
day by day. In a week or two after Pomona’s arrival 
I bought a cow. Euphemia was very anxious to have 
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RUDDER GRANGE 


an Alderney,— they were such gentle, beautiful crea- 
tures,— but I could not afford such a luxury. I might 
possibly compass an Alderney calf, but we would have 
to wait a couple of years for our milk, and Euphemia 
said it would be better to have a common cow than to 
do that. 

Great was our inward satisfaction when the cow, our 
own cow, walked slowly and solemnly into our yard 
and began to crop the clover on our little lawn. Po- 
mona and I gently drove her to the barn, while Eu- 
phemia endeavored to quiet the violent demonstrations 
of the dog (fortunately chained) by assuring him that 
this was our cow, and that she was to live here, and 
that he was to take care of her and never bark at her. 
All this and much more, delivered in the earnest and 
confidential tone in which ladies talk to infants and 
dumb animals, made the dog think that he was to be 
let loose to kill the cow, and he bounded and leaped 
with delight, tugging at his chain so violently that 
Euphemia became a little frightened and left him. 
This dog had been named Lord Edward, at the earnest 
solicitation of Pomona, and he was becoming somewhat 
reconciled to his life with us. He allowed me to un- 
chain him at night, and I could generally chain him 
up in the morning without trouble if I had a good big 
plate of food with which to tempt him into the shed. 

Before supper we all went down to the barn to see 
the milking. Pomona, who knew all about such things, 
having been on a farm in her first youth, was to be the 
milkmaid. But when she began operations, she did 
no more than begin. Milk as industriously as she 
might, she got no milk. 

“This is a queer cow,” said Pomona. 

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“ Are you sure that you know how to milk ? ” asked 
Euphemia, anxiously. 

“Can I milk ? ” said Pomona. “Why, of course, 
ma’am. I’ve seen ’em milk hundreds of times.” 

“But you never milked, yourself?” I remarked. 

“No, sir, but I know just how it’s done.” 

That might be, but she couldn’t do it, and at last 
we had to give up the matter in despair, and leave 
the poor cow until morning, when Pomona was to go 
for a man who occasionally worked on the place, and 
engage him to come and milk for us. 

That night as we were going to bed I looked out of 
the window at the barn which contained the cow, and 
was astonished to see that there was a light inside of 
the building. 

“What ! ” I exclaimed. “Can’t we be left in peace- 
ful possession of a cow for a single night?” And 
taking my revolver, I hurried down-stairs and out of 
doors, forgetting my hat in my haste. Euphemia 
screamed after me to be careful to keep the pistol 
pointed away from me. 

I whistled for the dog as I went out, but, to my sur- 
prise, he did not answer. 

“Has he been killed?” I thought, and, for a mo- 
ment, I wished I were a large family of brothers— 
all armed. 

But on my way to the barn I met a person ap- 
proaching with a lantern and a dog. It was Pomona, 
and she had a milk -pail on her arm. 

“See here, sir,” she said, “it’s mor’n half full. I 
just made up my mind that I’d learn to milk, if it 
took me all night. I didn’t go to bed at all, and I’ve 
been at the barn fur an hour. And there ain’t no 
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need of my goin’ after no man in the morning” said 
she, hanging up the barn key on its nail. 

I simply mention this circumstance to show what 
kind of a girl Pomona had grown to be. 

We were all the time at work, in some way, im- 
proving our little place. “Some day we will buy it,” 
said Euphemia. We intended to have some wheat 
put in in the fall, and next year we would make the 
place fairly crack with luxuriance. We would divide 
the duties of the farm, and, among other things, Eu- 
phemia would take charge of the chickens. She 
wished to do this entirely herself, so there might 
be one thing that should be all her own, just as my 
work in town was all my own. As she wished to buy 
the chickens and defray all the necessary expenses 
out of her own private funds, I could make no objec- 
tions, and, indeed, I had no desire to do so. She 
bought a chicken-book, and made herself mistress of 
the subject. For a week there was a strong chicken 
flavor in all our conversation. 

This was while the poultry-yard was building. 
There was a chicken-house on the place, but no yard, 
and Euphemia intended to have a good big one, be- 
cause she was going into the business to make 
money. 

“Perhaps my chickens may buy the place,” she 
said, and I very much hoped they would. 

Everything was to be done very systematically. She 
would have Leghorns, Brahmas, and common fowls. 
The first because they laid so many eggs, the second 
because they were such fine, big fowls, and the third 
because they were such good mothers. 

“We will eat and sell the eggs of the first and third 
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classes,” she said, “and set the eggs of the second class 
under the hens of the third class.” 

“There seems to be some injustice in that arrange- 
ment,” I said, “for the first class will always be child- 
less, the second class will have nothing to do with 
their offspring, while the third will be obliged to bring 
np and care for the children of others.” 

But I really had no voice in this matter. As soon 
as the carpenter had finished the yard, and had made 
some coops and other necessary arrangements, Euphe- 
mia hired a carriage and went about the country to 
buy chickens. It was not easy to find just what she 
wanted, and she was gone all -day. 

However, she brought home an enormous Brahma 
cock and ten hens, which number was pretty equally 
divided into her three classes. She was very proud of 
her purchases, and indeed they were fine fowls. In 
the evening I made some allusion to the cost of all 
this carpenter work, carriage hire, etc., besides the 
price of the chickens. 

“Oh ! ” said she, “you don’t look at the matter in the 
right light. You haven’t studied it up as I have. 
How, just let me show you how this thing will pay, if 
carried on properly.” Producing a piece of paper 
covered with figures, she continued : “I begin with 
ten hens— I got four common ones, because it would 
make it easier to calculate. After a while I set these 
ten hens on thirteen eggs each. Three of these eggs 
will probably spoil— that leaves ten chickens hatched 
out. Of these, I will say that half die $ that will make 
five chickens for each hen. You see, I leave a large 
margin for loss. This makes fifty chickens, and when 
we add the ten hens we have sixty fowls at the end of 
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RUDDER GRANGE 


the first year. Next year I set these sixty, and they 
bring up five chickens each,— I am sure there will be 
a larger proportion than this, but I want to be safe,— 
and that is three hundred chickens ; add the hens, and 
we have three hundred and sixty at the end of the 
second year. In the third year, calculating in the 
same safe way, we shall have twenty-one hundred and 
sixty chickens ; in the fourth year there will be twelve 
thousand nine hundred and sixty ; and at the end of 
the fifth year, which is as far as I need to calculate 
now, we shall have sixty-four thousand and eight hun- 
dred fowls. What do you think of that? At sev- 
enty-five cents apiece,— which is cheap enough,— that 
would be forty-eight thousand and six hundred dollars. 
Now, what is the petty cost of a fence and a few 
coops by the side of a sum like that? ” 

“Nothing at all,’ 7 I answered. “It is lost like a 
drop in the ocean. I hate, my dear, to interfere in 
any way with such a splendid calculation as that, but 
I would like to ask you one question.” 

“Oh, of course,” she said. “I suppose you are going 
to say something about the cost of feeding all this 
poultry. That is to come out of the chickens sup- 
posed to die. They won’t die. It is ridiculous to 
suppose that each hen will bring up but five chickens. 
The chickens that will live out of those I consider as 
dead will more than pay for the feed.” 

“That is not what I was going to ask you, although 
of course it ought to be considered. But you know you 
are only going to set common hens, and you do not in- 
tend to raise any. Now, are those four hens to do all 
the setting and mother- work for five years, and even- 
tually bring up over sixty-four thousand chickens ? ” 
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RUDDER GRANGE 


“Well, I did make a mistake there,” she said, color- 
ing a little. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do : I’ll set every 
one of my hens every year.” 

“But all those chickens may not be hens. You have 
calculated that every one of them would set as soon as 
it was old enough.” 

She stopped a minute to think this over. 

“Two heads are better than one, I see,” she said 
directly. “I’ll allow that one half of all the chickens 
are roosters, and that will make the profits twenty- 
four thousand three hundred dollars— more than 
enough to buy this place.” 

“Ever so much more,” I cried. “This Rudder 
Grange is ours!” 


92 


CHAPTER IX 


WE CAMP OUT 

My wife and I were both so fond of country life and ’ 
country pursuits that month after month passed by at 
our little farm in a succession of delightful days. Time 
flew like a limited express train, and it was Septem- >: v 
ber before we knew it. 

I had been working very hard at the office that 
summer, and was glad to think of my two weeks 7 va- 
cation, which was to begin on the first Monday of 
the month. I had intended spending these two weeks 
in rural retirement at home, but an interview in the 
city with my family physician caused me to change 
my mind. I told him my plan. 

“Now , 77 said he, “if I were you I would do nothing 
of the kind. You have been working too hard $ your 
face shows it. You need rest and change. Nothing 
will do you so much good as to camp out ; that will be 
fifty times better than going to any summer resort. 
You can take your wife with you. I know she 7 ll like 
it. I don 7 t care where you go, so that it 7 s a healthy 
spot. Get a good tent and an outfit, be off to the 
woods, and forget all about business and domestic mat- 
ters for a few weeks . 77 

This sounded splendid, and I propounded the plan 
93 


RUDDER GRANGE 


to Euphemia that evening. She thought very well of 
it, and was sure we could do it. Pomona would not 
be afraid to remain in the house, under the protection 
of Lord Edward, and she could easily attend to the 
cow and the chickens. It would be a holiday for her, 
too. Old John, the man who occasionally worked for 
us, would come up sometimes and see after things. 
With her customary dexterity, Euphemia swept away 
every obstacle to the plan, and all was settled before 
we went to bed. 

As my wife had presumed, Pomona made no objec- 
tions to remaining in charge of the house. The 
scheme pleased her greatly. So far, so good. I 
called that day on a friend who was in the habit of 
camping out, to talk to him about getting a tent and 
the necessary “traps ” for a life in the woods. He 
proved perfectly competent to furnish advice and 
everything else. He offered to lend me all I needed. 
He had a complete outfit $ had done with them for 
the year, and I was perfectly welcome. Here was 
rare luck. He gave me a tent, camp -stove, dishes, 
pots, gun, fishing-tackle, a big canvas coat with dozens 
of pockets riveted on it, a canvas hat, rods, reels, 
boots that came up to my hips,— about a wagon- 
load of things in all. He was a really good fellow. 

We laid in a stock of canned and condensed provi- 
sions, and I bought a book on camping out so as to be 
well posted on the subject. On the Saturday before 
the first Monday in September we would have been 
entirely ready to start had we decided on the place 
where we were to go. 

We found it very difficult to make this decision. 
There were thousands of places where people went to 
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RUDDER GRANGE 


camp out, but none of them seemed to be the place 
for us. Most of them were too far away. We figured 
up the cost of taking ourselves and our camp equipage 
to the Adirondacks, the Lakes, the trout-streams of 
Maine, or any of those well-known resorts, and we 
found that we could not afford such trips, especially 
for a vacation of but fourteen days. 

On Sunday afternoon we took a little walk. Our 
minds were still troubled about the spot toward which 
we ought to journey next day, and we needed the 
soothing influences of nature. The country to the 
north and west of our little farm was very beautiful. 
About half a mile from the house a modest river ran ; 
on each side of it were grass-covered fields and hills, 
and in some places there were extensive tracts of 
woodlands. 

“Look here ! ” exclaimed Euphemia, stopping short 
in the little path that wound along by the river-bank. 
“Do you see this river, those woods, those beautiful 
fields, with not a soul in them or anywhere near them, 
and those lovely blue mountains over there ? ” As she 
spoke she waved her parasol in the direction of the 
objects indicated, and I could not mistake them. 
“Now, what could we want better than this?” she 
continued. “Here we can fish, and do everything 
that we want to. I say, let us camp here on our own 
river. I can take you to the very spot for the tent. 
Come on ! ” And she was so excited about it that she 
fairly ran. 

The spot she pointed out was one we had frequently 
visited in our rural walks. It was a grassy peninsula, 
as I termed it, formed by a sudden turn of a creek 
which, a short distance below, flowed into the river. 

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RUDDER GRANGE 


It was a very secluded spot. The place was ap- 
proached through a pasture-field,— we had found it 
by mere accident,— and where the peninsula joined 
the field,— we had to climb a fence just there,— was 
a cluster of chestnut and hickory trees, while down 
near the point stood a wide-spreading oak. 

“Here, under this oak, is the place for the tent / 7 said 
Euphemia, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling, and 
her dress a little torn by getting over the fence in a 
hurry. “What do we want with your Adirondacks 
and your Dismal Swamps ? This is the spot for us ! 77 

“Euphemia , 77 said I, in as composed a tone as pos- 
sible, although my whole frame was trembling with 
emotion, “Euphemia, I am glad I married you ! 77 

Had it not been Sunday, we would have set up our 
tent that night. 

Early the next morning, Old John’s fifteen-dollar 
horse drew from our house a wagon-load of camp 
fixtures. There was some difficulty in getting the 
wagon over the field, and there were fences to be 
taken down to allow of its passage $ but we overcame 
all obstacles, and reached the camp -ground without 
breaking so much as a tea-cup. Old John helped me 
pitch the tent, and as neither of us understood the 
matter very well, it took us some time. It was, indeed, 
nearly noon when Old John left us, and it may have 
been possible that he delayed matters a little so as to 
be able to charge for a full half-day for himself and 
horse. Euphemia got into the wagon to ride back 
with him, that she might give some parting injunc- 
tions to Pomona. 

“HI have to stop a bit to put up the fences, ma’am , 77 
said Old John, “or Misther Ball might make a fuss . 77 
96 


RUDDER GRANGE 


“Is this Mr. Ball’s land?” I asked. 

“Oh, yes, sir, it’s Mr. Ball’s land.” 

“I wonder how he’ll like our camping on it?” I 
said thoughtfully. 

“I’d ’a’ thought, sir, you’d ’a’ asked him that before 
you came,” said Old John, in a tone that seemed to in- 
dicate that he had his doubts about Mr. Ball. 

“Oh, there’ll be no trouble about that,” cried Eu- 
phemia. “You can drive me past Mr. Ball’s,— it’s not 
much out of the way,— and I’ll ask him.” 

“In that wagon?” said I. “Will you stop at Mr. 
Ball’s door in that?” 

“Certainly,” said she, as she arranged herself on the 
board which served as a seat. “Now that our cam- 
paign has really commenced, we ought to begin to 
rough it, and should not be too proud to ride even in 
a— in a—” 

She evidently couldn’t think of any vehicle mean 
enough for her purpose. 

“In a green-grocery cart,” I suggested. 

“Yes, or in a red one. Go ahead, John.” 

When Euphemia returned on foot, I had a fire in 
the camp-stove and the kettle was on. 

“Well,” said Euphemia, “Mr. Ball says it’s all right, 
if we keep the fence up. He don’t want his cows to 
get into the creek, and I’m sure we don’t want them 
walking over us. He couldn’t understand, though, 
why we wanted to live out here. I explained the 
whole thing to him very carefully, but it didn’t seem 
to make much impression on him. I believe he thinks 
Pomona has something the matter with her, and that 
we have come to stay out here in the fresh air so as 
not to take it.” 


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RUDDER GRANGE 


“What an extremely stupid man Mr. Ball must 
be ! ” I exclaimed. 

The fire did not burn very well, and while I was 
at work at it Euphemia spread a cloth upon the 
grass, and set forth bread and butter, cheese, sardines, 
potted ham, preserves, biscuits, and a lot of other 
things. 

We did not wait for the kettle to boil, but con- 
cluded to do without tea or coffee for this meal, and 
content ourselves with pure water. For some reason 
or other, however, the creek water did not seem to be 
very pure, and we did not like it a bit. 

“After lunch,’ 7 said I, “we will go and look for a 
spring 5 that will be a good way of exploring the 
country.” 

“If we can’t find one,” said Euphemia, “we shall 
have to go to the house for water, for I can never 
drink that stuff.” 

Soon after lunch we started out. We searched high 
and low, near and far, for a spring, but could not find 
one. 

At length, by merest accident, we found ourselves 
in the vicinity of Old John’s little house. I knew he 
had a good well, and so we went in to get a drink, for 
our ham and biscuits had made us very thirsty. 

We told Old John, who was digging potatoes, and 
was also very much surprised to see us so soon, about 
our unexpected trouble in finding a spring. 

“No,” said he, very slowly, “there is no spring 
very near to you. Didn’t you tell your gal to bring 
you water?” 

“No,” I replied, “we don’t want her coming down 
to the camp. She is to attend to the house.” 

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RUDDER GRANGE 


* “Oh, very well,” said John, “I will bring yon 
water, morning and night,— good, fresh water,— from 
my well, for— well, for ten cents a day.” 

“That will be nice,” said Euphemia, “and cheap, 
too. And then, it will be well to have John come 
every day ; he can carry our letters.” 

“I don’t expect to write any letters.” 

“Neither do I,” said Euphemia $ “but it will be 
pleasant to have some communication with the outer 
world.” 

So we engaged Old John to bring us water twice a 
day. I was a little disappointed at this, for I thought 
that camping on the edge of a stream settled the 
matter of water. But we have many things to learn 
in this world. 

Early in the afternoon I went out to catch some 
fish for supper. We agreed to dispense with dinner, 
and have breakfast, lunch, and a good solid supper. 

For some time I had poor luck. There were either 
very few fish in the creek, or they were not hungry. 

I had been fishing an hour or more when I saw 
Euphemia running toward me. 

“What’s the matter?” said I. 

“Oh, nothing. I’ve just come to see how you were 
getting along. Haven’t you been gone an awfully 
long time? And are those all the fish you’ve caught? 
What little bits of things they are ! I thought peo- 
ple who camped out caught big fish and lots of 
them ! ” 

“That depends a good deal upon where they go,” 
said I. 

“Yes, I suppose so,” replied Euphemia. “But I 
should think a stream as big as this would have plenty 
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of fish in it. However, if yon can’t catch any, yon 
might go up to the road and watch for Mr. Mulligan. 
He sometimes comes along on Mondays.” 

“Pm not going to the road to watch for any fish- 
man,” I replied, a little more testily than I should 
have spoken. “What sort of a camping out would 
that be ? But we must not be talking here, or I shall 
never get a bite. Those fish are a little soiled from 
jumping about in the dust. You might wash them 
off at that shallow place, while I go a little farther on 
and try my luck.” 

I went a short distance up the creek, and threw my 
line into a dark, shadowy pool, under some alders, 
where there certainly should be fish. And, sure 
enough, in less than a minute I got a splendid bite 
—not only a bite, but a pull. I knew I had cer- 
tainly hooked a big fish ! The thing actually tugged 
at my line so that I was afraid the pole would break. 
I did not fear for the line, for that, I knew, was strong. 
I would have played the fish until he was tired and I 
could pull him out without risk to the pole, but I did 
not know exactly how the process of “playing” was 
conducted. I was very much excited. Sometimes I 
gave a jerk and a pull, and then the fish would give a 
jerk and a pull. 

Directly I heard some one running toward me, and 
then I heard Euphemia cry out : 

“Give him the butt ! Give him the butt ! ” 

“Give him what?” I exclaimed, without having 
time even to look up at her. 

“The butt! the butt!” she cried, almost breath- 
lessly. “I know that’s right ! I read how Edward 
Everett Hale did it in the Adirondacks.” 


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“Ho, it wasn’t Hale at all,” said I, as I jumped 
about the bank ; “it was Mr. Murray.” 

“Well, it was one of those fishing ministers, and I 
know that it caught the fish.” 

“I know, I know. I read it, but I don’t know how 
to do it.” 

“Perhaps you ought to punch him with it,” said 
she. 

“Ho, no ! ” I hurriedly replied, “I can’t do anything 
like that. I’m going to try to just pull him out length- 
wise. You take hold of the pole and go inshore as 
far as you can, and I’ll try and get hold of the line.” 

Euphemia did as I bade her, and drew the line in 
so that I could reach it. As soon as I had a firm hold 
of it, I pulled in, regardless of consequences, and 
hauled ashore an enormous catfish. 

“Hurrah ! ” I shouted, “here is a prize.” 

Euphemia dropped the pole, and ran to me. 

“What a horrid beast ! ” she exclaimed. “Throw 
it in again.” 

“Hot at all ! ” said I. “This is a splendid fish, if I 
can ever get him off the hook. Don’t come near him ! 
If he sticks that back-fin into you, it will poison you.” 

“Then I should think it would poison us to eat 
him,” said she. 

“Ho ; it’s only his fin.” 

“I’ve eaten catfish, but I never saw one like that,” 
she said. “Look at its horrible mouth ! And it has 
whiskers like a cat ! ” 

“Oh ! you never saw one with its head on,” I said. 
“What I want to do is to get this hook out.” 

I had caught catfish before, but never one so large 
as this, and I was actually afraid to take hold of it, 
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knowing as I did that yon must be very careful how 
you clutch a fish of the kind. I finally concluded to 
carry it home as it was, and then I could decapitate 
it and take out the hook at my leisure. So back to 
camp we went, Euphemia picking up the little fish 
as we passed, for she did not think it right to catch 
fish and not eat them. They made her hands smell, 
it is true j but she did not mind that when we were 
camping. 

I prepared the big fish (and I had a desperate time 
getting the skin off), while my wife, who is one of the 
daintiest cooks in the world, made the fire in the 
stove and got ready the rest of the supper. She 
fried the fish, because I told her that was the way 
catfish ought to be cooked, although she said that it 
seemed very strange to her to camp out for the sake 
of one’s health, and then to eat fried food. 

But that fish was splendid ! The very smell of it 
made us hungry. Everything was good, and when 
supper was over and the dishes washed, I lighted my 
pipe, and we sat down under a tree to enjoy the 
evening. 

The sun had set behind the distant ridge ; a delight- 
ful twilight was gently subduing every color of the 
scene ; the night insects were beginning to hum and 
chirp $ and a fire that I had made under a tree blazed 
up gayly, and threw little flakes of light into the 
shadows under the shrubbery. 

“Now, isn’t this better than being cooped up in a 
narrow, constricted house ? ” said I. 

“Ever so much better!” said Euphemia. “Now 
we know what nature is. We are sitting right down 
in her lap, and she is cuddling us up. Isn’t that sky 
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lovely? Oh, I think this is perfectly splendid ! ” said 
she, making a little dab at her face,— “if it wasn’t for 
the mosquitoes.” 

“They are bad,” I said. “I thought my pipe would 
keep them off, but it doesn’t. There must be plenty of 
them down at that creek.” 

“Down there ! ” exclaimed Euphemia. “Why, there 
are thousands of them here ! I never saw anything 
like it. They’re getting worse every minute.” 

“I’ll tell you what we must do,” I exclaimed, jump- 
ing up. “We must make a smudge.” 

“What’s that? do you rub it on yourself?” asked 
Euphemia, anxiously. 

“No, it’s only a great smoke. Come, let us gather 
up dry leaves and make a smouldering fire of them.” 

We managed to get up a very fair smudge, and we 
stood to the leeward of it until Euphemia began to 
cough and sneeze as if her head would come off. 
With tears running from her eyes, she declared that 
she would rather go and be eaten alive than stay in 
that smoke. 

“Perhaps we are too near it,” said I. 

“That may be,” she answered, “but I have had 
enough smoke. WTiy didn’t I think of it before ? I 
brought two veils ! We can put these over our faces, 
and wear gloves.” 

She was always full of expedients. 

Veiled and gloved, we bade defiance to the mos- 
quitoes, and we sat and talked for half an hour or 
more. I made a little hole in my veil, through which 
I put the mouthpiece of my pipe. 

When it became really dark, I lighted the lantern, 
and we prepared for a well-earned night’s rest. The 
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tent was spacious and comfortable, and we each had 
a nice little cot-bed. 

“Are you going to leave the front door open all 
night ?” said Euphemia, as I came in after a final 
round to see that all was right. 

“I should hardly call this canvas flap a front door,” 
I said, “but I think it would be better to leave it 
open j otherwise we should smother. You need not 
be afraid. I shall keep my gun here by my bedside, 
and if any one offers to come in, I’ll bring him to a 
full stop quick enough.” 

“Yes, if you are awake. But I suppose we ought 
not to be afraid of burglars here. People in tents 
never are. So you needn’t shut it.” 

It was awfully quiet and dark and lonely out there 
by that creek, when the light had been put out and 
we had gone to bed. For some reason I could not go 
to sleep. After I had been lying awake for an hour 
or two, Euphemia spoke. 

“Are you awake*? ” said she, in a low voice, as if she 
were afraid of disturbing the people in the next room. 

“Yes,” said I. “How long have you been awake? ” 

“I haven’t been asleep.” 

“Neither have I.” 

“Suppose we light the lantern,” said she. “Don’t 
you think it would be pleasanter?” 

“It might be,” I replied, “but it would draw myri- 
ads of mosquitoes. I wish I had brought a mosquito- 
net and a clock. It seems so lonesome without the 
ticking. Good night! We ought to have a long 
sleep, if we do much tramping about to-morrow.” 

In about half an hour more, just as I was beginning 
to be a little sleepy, she said : 

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“Where is that gun?” 

“Here by me/’ I answered. 

“Well, if a man should come in, try to be sure to 
put it up close to him before you fire. In a little 
tent like this the shot might scatter everywhere, if 
you’re not careful.” 

“All right,” I said. “Good night ! ” 

“There’s one thing we never thought of!” she 
presently exclaimed. 

“What’s that?” said I. 

“Snakes,” said she. 

“Well, don’t let’s think of them. We must try to 
get a little sleep.” 

“Dear knows, I’ve beetL trying hard enough ! ” she 
said plaintively, and all was quiet again. 

We succeeded this time in going to sleep, and it 
was broad daylight before we awoke. 

That morning Old John came with our water be- 
fore breakfast was ready. He also brought us some 
milk, as he thought we would want it. We con- 
sidered this a good idea, and agreed to have him 
bring us a quart a day. 

“Don’t you want some wegetables ? ” said he. “I’ve 
got some nice corn and some tomatoes, and I could 
bring you cabbage and peas.” 

We had hardly expected to have fresh vegetables 
every day, but there seemed to be no reason why Old 
John should not bring them, as he had to come every 
day with the water and milk, and we arranged that 
he should furnish us daily with a few of the products 
of his garden. 

“I could go to the butcher’s and get you a steak 
or some chops, if you’d let me know in the morn- 
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in’,” said he, intent on the profits of further com- 
missions. 

But this was going too far. We remembered we 
were camping out, and declined to have meat from 
the butcher. 

John had not been gone more than ten minutes 
before we saw Mr. Ball approaching. 

“Oh, I hope he isn’t going to say we can’t stay ! ” 
exclaimed Euphemia. 

“How d’ye do ? ” said Mr. Ball, shaking hands with 
us. “Did you stick it out all night? ” 

“Oh, yes, indeed,” I replied, “and expect to stick it 
out for many more nights, if you don’t object to our 
occupying your land.” 

“Ho objection in the world,” said he. “But it seems 
a little queer for people who have a good house to be 
livin’ out here in the fields in a tent, now, doesn’t it? ” 

“Oh, but you see,” said I, and I went on and ex- 
plained the whole thing to him— the advice of the 
doctor, the discussion about the proper place to go to, 
and the good reasons for fixing on this spot. 

“Ye-es,” said he, “that’s all very well, no doubt. 
But how’s the girl ? ” 

“What girl? ” I asked. 

“Your girl. The hired girl you left at the house.” 

“Oh,” said I. “She’s always well.” 

“Well,” said Mr. Ball, slowly turning on his heel, 
“if you say so, I suppose she is. But you’re goin’ up 
to the house to-day to see about her, aren’t you? ” 

“Oh, no,” said Euphemia. “We don’t intend to go 
near the house until our camping is over.” 

“Just so— just so,” said Mr. Ball. “I expected as 
much. But look here ; don’t you think it would be 
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well for me to ask Dr. Ames to stop in and see how 
she is gettin’ along? I dare say you’ve fixed every- 
thing for her, but that would be safer, you know. 
He’s cornin’ this mornin’ to vaccinate my baby, and 
he might stop there, just as well as not, after he has 
left my house.” 

Euphemia and I could see no necessity for this pro- 
posed visit of the doctor, but we could not well object 
to it, and so Mr. Ball said he would be sure and send 
him. 

After our visitor had gone the significance of his 
remarks flashed on me. He still thought that Pomona 
was sick with something catching, and that we were 
afraid to stay in the house with her. But I said noth- 
ing about this to Euphemia. It would only worry 
her, and our vacation was to be a season of unalloyed 
delight. 


107 


CHAPTER X 


WET BLANKETS 

We certainly enjoyed onr second day in camp. All 
the morning, and a great part of the afternoon, we 
“explored.” We fastened np the tent as well as we 
could, and then, I with my gun and Euphemia with 
the fishing-pole, we started up the creek. We did 
not go very far, for it would not do to leave the tent 
too long. I did not shoot anything, but Euphemia 
caught two or three nice little fish, and we enjoyed 
the sport exceedingly. 

Soon after we returned in the afternoon, and while 
we were getting things in order for supper, we had a 
call from two of our neighbors, Captain Atkinson and 
his wife. The captain greeted us hilariously. 

“Hello ! ” he cried. “Why, this is gay. Who would 
ever have thought of a domestic couple like you going 
on such a lark as this? We just heard about it from 
Old John, and we came down to see what you are up 
to. You’ve got everything very nice. I think I’d 
like this myself. Why, you might have a rifle-range 
out here. You could cut down those bushes on the 
other side of the creek, and put up your target over 
there on that hill. Then you could lie down here on 
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the grass and hang away all day. If you’ll do that 
I’ll come down and practise with you. How long are 
you going to keep it up f ” 

I told him that we expected to spend my two weeks’ 
vacation here. 

“Not if it rains, my boy,” said he. “I know what 
it is to camp out in the rain.” 

Meanwhile Mrs. Atkinson had been with Euphemia, 
examining the tent and our equipage generally. 

“It would be very nice for a day’s picnic,” she said, 
“but I wouldn’t want to stay out of doors all night.” 

Then, addressing me, she asked : 

“Do you have to breathe the fresh air all the time, 
night as well as day? I expect that is a very good 
prescription, but I would not like to have to follow it 
myself.” 

“If the fresh air is what you must have,” said the 
captain, “you might have got all you wanted of that 
without taking the trouble to come out here. You 
could have sat on your back porch, night and day, 
for the whole two weeks, and breathed all the fresh 
air that any man could need.” 

“Yes,” said I, “and I might have gone down cellar 
and put my head in the cold-air box of the furnace. 
But there wouldn’t have been much fun in that.” 

“There are a good many things that there’s no fun 
in,” said the captain. “Do you cook your own meals, 
or have them sent from the house ? ” 

“Cook them ourselves, of course,” said Euphemia. 
“We are going to have supper now. Won’t you 
wait and take some ? ” 

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Atkinson, “but we must go.” 

“Yes, we must be going,” said the captain. “Good- 
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by. If it rains I’ll come down after you with an 
umbrella.” 

“You need not trouble yourself about that,” said I. 
“We shall rough it out, rain or shine.” 

“I’d stay here now,” said Euphemia, when they had 
gone, “if it rained pitch.” 

“You mean pitchforks,” I suggested. 

“Yes, anything,” she answered. 

“Well, I don’t know about the pitchforks,” I said, 
looking over the creek at the sky, “but I am very 
much afraid that it is going to rain rain-water 
to-morrow. But that won’t drive us home, will 
it?” 

“No, indeed ! ” said she. “We’re prepared for it. 
But I wish they’d stayed at home.” 

Sure enough, it commenced to rain that night, and 
we had showers all the next day. We stayed in camp 
during the morning, and I smoked, and we played 
checkers, and had a very cosey time, with a wood fire 
burning under a tree near by. We kept up this fire, 
not to dry the air, but to make things look comfortable. 
In the afternoon I dressed myself up in waterproof 
coat, boots, and hat, and started out to fish. I went 
down to the water and fished along the banks for an 
hour, but caught nothing of any consequence. This 
was a great disappointment, for we had expected to 
live on fresh fish for a great part of the time while 
we were camping. With plenty of fish, we could do 
without meat very well. 

We talked the matter over on my return, and we 
agreed that as it seemed impossible to depend upon 
a supply of fish from the waters about our camp, it 
would be better to let Old John bring fresh meat from 
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the butcher ; and as neither of us liked crackers, we 
also agreed that he should bring bread. 

Our greatest trouble that evening was to make a 
fire. The wood, of which there was a good deal lying 
about under the trees, was now all wet and would not 
burn. However, we managed to get up a fire in the 
stove. But I did not know what we were going to do 
in the morning. We should have stored away some 
wood under shelter. 

We set our little camp-table in the tent, and we 
had scarcely finished our supper when a very heavy 
rain set in, accompanied by a violent wind. The 
canvas at one end of our tent must have been badly 
fastened, for it was blown in, and in an instant our 
beds were deluged. I rushed out to fasten up the 
canvas, and got drenched almost to the skin ; and al- 
though Euphemia put on her waterproof cloak as 
soon as she could, she was pretty wet, for the rain 
seemed to dash right through the tent. 

This gust of wind did not last long, and the rain 
soon settled down into a steady drizzle, but we were 
in a sad plight. It was after nine o’clock before we 
had put things into tolerable order. 

“We can’t sleep in those beds,” said Euphemia. 
“ They’re as wet as sop, and we shall have to go up 
to the house and get something to spread over them. 
I don’t want to do it, but we mustn’t catch our deaths 
of cold.” 

There was nothing to be said against this, and we 
prepared to start out. I would have gone by myself, 
but Euphemia would not consent to be left alone. It 
was still raining, though not very hard, and I carried 
an umbrella and a lantern. Climbing fences at night, 
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with a wife, a lantern, and an umbrella to take care 
of, is not very agreeable, but we managed to reach the 
house, although once or twice we had an argument in 
regard to the path, which seemed to be very different 
at night from what it was in the daytime. 

Lord Edward came bounding to the gate to meet us, 
and I am happy to say that he knew me at once, and 
wagged his tail in a very sociable way. 

I had the key of a side-door in my pocket, for we 
had thought it wise to give ourselves command of this 
door, and so we let ourselves in without ringing or 
waking Pomona. 

All was quiet within, and we went up -stairs with the 
lantern. Everything seemed clean and in order, and 
it is impossible to convey any idea of the element of 
comfort which seemed to pervade the house as we 
quietly made our way up -stairs in our wet boots and 
heavy, damp clothes. 

The articles we wanted were in a closet, and while 
I was making a bundle of them Euphemia went to 
look for Pomona. She soon returned, walking softly. 

“She’s sound asleep,” said she, “and I didn’t think 
there was any need of waking her. We’ll send word 
by John that we’ve been here. And oh, you can’t 
imagine how snug and happy she did look, lying there 
in her comfortable bed in that nice, airy room. I’ll 
tell you what it is, if it wasn’t for the neighbors, and 
especially the Atkinsons, I wouldn’t go back one 
step.” 

“Well,” said I, “I don’t know that I care so par- 
ticularly about it, myself. But I suppose I couldn’t 
stay here and leave all Thompson’s things out there 
to take care of themselves.” 


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“Oh, no !” said Euphemia. “And we’re not going 
to back down. Are yon ready ? ” 

On our way down-stairs we had to pass the partly 
open door of our own room. I could not help holding 
up the lantern to look in. There was the bed, with 
its fair white covering and its smooth, soft pillows ; 
there were the easy-chairs, the pretty curtains, the 
neat and cheerful carpet, the bureau with Euphemia’s 
work-basket on it ; there was the little table, with the 
book that we had been reading together turned face 
downward upon it,* there were my slippers 5 there 
was— 

“Come !” said Euphemia, “I can’t bear to look in 
there. It’s like a dead child.” 

And so we hurried out into the night and the rain. 

We stopped at the woodshed and got an armful of 
dry kindling, which Euphemia was obliged to carry, 
as I had the bundle of bed-clothing, the umbrella, and 
the lantern. 

Lord Edward gave a short, peculiar bark as we shut 
the gate behind us, but whether it was meant as a 
fond farewell, or a hoot of derision, I cannot say. 

We found everything as we left it at the camp, and 
we made our beds apparently dry. But I did not 
sleep well. I could not help thinking that it was not 
safe to sleep in a bed with a substratum of wet mat- 
tress, and I worried Euphemia a little by asking her 
several times if she felt the dampness striking through. 

To our great delight, the next day was fine and 
clear, and I thought I would like, better than any- 
thing else, to take Euphemia in a boat up the river, 
and spend the day rowing about, or resting in shady 
places on the shore. 


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RUDDER GRANGE 


But what could we do about the tent ? It would be 
impossible to go away and leave that, with its con- 
tents, for a whole day. 

When Old John came with our water, milk, bread, 
and a basket of vegetables, we told him of our desired 
excursion, and the difficulty in the way. This good 
man, who always had a keen scent for any advantage 
to himself, warmly praised the boating plan, and vol- 
unteered to send his wife and two of his younger 
children to stay with the tent while we were away. 
The old woman, he said, could do her sewing here 
as well as anywhere, and she would stay all day for 
fifty cents. 

This plan pleased us, and we sent for Mrs. Old John, 
who came with three of her children,— all too young 
to leave behind, she said,— and took charge of the camp. 

Our day proved to be as delightful as we had antici- 
pated, and when we returned, hungry and tired, we 
were perfectly charmed to find that Mrs. Old John 
had our supper ready for us. 

She charged a quarter extra for this service, and 
we did not begrudge it to her, though we declined 
her offer to come every day and cook and keep the 
place in order. 

“However,” said Euphemia, on second thoughts, 
“you may come on Saturday and clean up generally.” 

The next day, which was Friday, I went out in the 
morning with the gun. As yet I had shot nothing, 
for I had seen no birds about the camp which, with- 
out breaking the State laws, I thought I could kill ; 
and so I started off up the river road. 

I saw no game, but after I had walked about a mile 
I met a man in a wagon. 


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“Hello ! ” said he, pulling up ; “you’d better be 
careful how you go popping around here on the public 
roads, frightening horses.” 

As I had not yet fired a single shot, I thought this 
was a very impudent speech, and I think so still. 

“You had better wait until I begin to pop,” said I, 
“before you make such a fuss about it.” 

“Ho,” said he, “I’d rather make the fuss before you 
begin. My horse is skittish, ” and he drove off. 

This man annoyed me ; but as I did not, of course, 
wish to frighten horses, I left the road and made my 
way back to the tent over some very rough fields. It 
was a poor day for birds, and I did not get a shot. 

“What a foolish man!” said Euphemia, when I 
told her the above incident, “to talk that way when 
you stood there with a gun in your hand. You might 
have raked his wagon, fore and aft.” 

That afternoon, as Euphemia and I were sitting 
under a tree by the tent, we were very much surprised 
to see Pomona come walking down the peninsula. 

I was annoyed and provoked at this. We had given 
Pomona positive orders not to leave the place, under 
any pretence, while we were gone. If necessary to 
send for anything, she could go to the fence back of 
the barn, and scream across a small field to some of 
the numerous members of Old John’s family. Under 
this arrangement, I felt that the house was perfectly 
safe. 

Before she could reach us, I called out : 

“Why did you leave the house, Pomona? Don’t 
you know you should never come away and leave the 
house empty? I thought I had made you understand 
that.” 


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RUDDER GRANGE 


“It isn’t empty,” said Pomona, in an entirely un- 
ruffled tone. “Your old boarder is there, with his 
wife and child.” 

Euphemia and I looked at each other in dismay. 

“They came early this afternoon,” continued Po- 
mona, “by the one-fourteen train, and walked up, he 
carrying the child.” 

“It can’t be,” cried Euphemia. “Their child’s 
married.” 

“It must have married very young, then,” said 
Pomona, “for it isn’t over four years old now.” 

“Oh,” said Euphemia, “I know ! It’s his grand- 
child.” 

“Grandchild!” repeated Pomona, with her coun- 
tenance more expressive of emotion than I had ever 
yet seen it. 

“Yes,” said Euphemia. “But how long are they 
going to stay? Where did you tell them we were? ” 

“They didn’t say how long they was goin’ to stay,” 
answered Pomona. “I told them you had gone to be 
with some friends in the country, and that I didn’t 
know whether you’d be home to-night or not.” 

“How could you tell them such a falsehood?” cried 
Euphemia. 

“That was no falsehood,” said Pomona ; “it was true 
as truth. If you’re not your own friends, I don’t know 
who is. And I wasn’t a-goin’ to tell the boarder where 
you was till I found out whether you wanted me to 
do it or not. And so I left ’em and run over to Old 
John’s, and then down here.” 

It was impossible to find fault with the excellent 
management of Pomona. 

“What were they doing?” asked Euphemia. 

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“I opened the parlor, and she was in there with the 
child— putting it to sleep on the sofa, I think. The 
boarder was out in the yard, tryin’ to teach Lord 
Edward some tricks.” 

“He had better look out ! ” I exclaimed. 

“Oh, the dog’s chained and growlin’ fearful ! What 
am I to do with ’em ? ” 

This was a difficult point to decide. If we went to 
see them, we might as well break up our camp, for we 
could not tell when we should be able to come back to it. 

We discussed the matter very anxiously, and finally 
concluded that under the circumstances, and consider- 
ing what Pomona had said about our whereabouts, it 
would be well for us to stay where we were and for 
Pomona to take charge of the visitors. If they re- 
turned to the city that evening, she was to give them 
a good supper before they went, sending John to the 
store for what was needed. If they stayed all night, 
she could get breakfast for them. 

“We can write,” said Euphemia, “and invite them 
to come and spend some days with us, when we are at 
home and everything is all right. I want dreadfully 
to see that child, but I don’t see how I can do it now.” 

“Ho,” said I. “They’re sure to stay all night if we 
go up to the house ; and then, I should have to have 
the tent and things hauled away, for I couldn’t leave 
them here.” 

“The fact is,” said Euphemia, “if we were miles 
away, in the woods of Maine, we couldn’t leave our 
camp to see anybody. And this is practically the 
same.” 

“Certainly,” said 1 ; and so Pomona went away to 
her new charge. 


117 


CHAPTER XI 


THE BOARDER’S VISIT 

For the rest of the afternoon, and indeed far into the 
night, our conversation consisted almost entirely of 
conjectures regarding the probable condition of things 
at the house. We both thought we had done right, 
but we felt bad about it. It was not hospitable, to 
be sure; but then, I should have no other holiday 
until next year, and our friends could come at any 
time to see us. 

The next morning Old John brought a note from 
Pomona. It was written with pencil on a small piece 
of paper torn from the margin of a newspaper, and 
contained the words, “Here yit.” 

“So you’ve got company,” said Old John, with a 
smile. “That’s a queer gal of yourn. She says I 
mustn’t tell ’em you’re here. As if I’d tell ’em ! ” 

We knew well enough that Old John was not at all 
likely to do anything that would cut off the nice little 
revenue he was making out of our camp, and so we 
felt no concern on that score. 

But we were very anxious for further news, and we 
told Old John to go to the house about ten o’clock 
and ask Pomona to send us another note. 

We waited, in a very disturbed condition of mind, 
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until nearly eleven o’clock, when Old John came with 
a verbal message from Pomona : 

“She says she’s a-comin’ herself as soon as she can 
get a chance to slip off.” 

This was not pleasant news. It filled our minds 
with a confused mass of probabilities, and it made us 
feel mean. How contemptible it seemed to be a party 
to this concealment and in league with a servant-girl 
who had to “slip off” ! 

Before long Pomona appeared, quite out of breath. 

“In all my life,” said she, “I never seen people like 
them two. I thought I was never goin’ to get away.” 

“Are they there yet?” cried Euphemia. “How 
long are they going to stay ? ” 

“Dear knows ! ” replied Pomona. “Their valise 
came up by express last night.” 

“Oh, we’ll have to go up to the house,” said Eu- 
phemia. “It won’t do to stay away any longer.” 

“Well,” said Pomona, fanning herself with her 
apron, “if you knowed all I know, I don’t think you’d 
think so.” 

“What do you mean?” said Euphemia. 

“Well, ma’am, they’ve just settled down and taken 
possession of the whole place. He says to me that he 
knowed you’d both want them to make themselves at 
home, just as if you was there, and they thought 
they’d better do it. He asked me did I think you 
would be home by Monday, and I said I didn’t know, 
but I guessed you would. So says he to his wife, 
‘ Won’t that be a jolly lark? We’ll just keep house 
for them here till they come.’ And he says he would 
go down to the store and order some things if there 
wasn’t enough in the house, and he asked her to see 
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what would be needed, which she did, and he’s gone 
down for ’em now. And she says that, as it was Sat- 
urday, she’d see that the house was all put to rights ; 
and after breakfast she set me to sweepin’ ; and it’s 
only by way of her dustin’ the parlor and givin’ me 
the little girl to take for a walk that I got off at all.” 

“But what have you done with the child?” ex- 
claimed Euphemia. 

“Oh, I left her at Old Johnses.” 

“And so you think they’re pleased with having the 
house to themselves ? ” I said. 

“Pleased, sir?” replied Pomona. “They’re tickled 
to death.” 

“But how do you like having strangers telling you 
what to do?” asked Euphemia. 

“Oh, well,” said Pomona, “he’s no stranger, and 
she’s real pleasant, and if it gives you a good camp 
out, I don’t mind.” 

Euphemia and I looked at each other. Here was 
true allegiance. We would remember this. 

Pomona now hurried off, and we seriously discussed 
the matter, and soon came to the conclusion that 
while it might be the truest hospitality to let our 
friends stay at our house for a day or two and enjoy 
themselves, still, it would not do for us to allow our- 
selves to be governed by a too delicate sentimentality. 
We must go home and act our part of host and hostess. 

Mrs. Old John had been at the camp ever since 
breakfast-time, giving the place a Saturday cleaning. 
What she had found to occupy her for so long a time 
I could not imagine, but in her efforts to put in a full 
half-day’s work, I have no doubt she scrubbed some of 
the trees. We had been so fully occupied with our 
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own affairs that we had paid very little attention to 
her, but she had probably heard pretty much all that 
had been said. 

At noon we paid her, giving her, at her suggestion, 
something extra in lieu of the midday meal, which 
she did not stay to take, and told her to send her 
husband, with his wagon, as soon as possible, as we 
intended to break up our encampment. We deter- 
mined that we would pack everything in John’s 
wagon, and let him take the load to his house, and 
keep it there until Monday, when I would have the 
tent and accompaniments expressed to their owner. 
We would go home and join our friends. It would 
not be necessary to say where we had been. 

It was hard for us to break up our camp. In many 
respects we had enjoyed the novel experience, and 
we had fully expected, during the next week, to make 
up for all our shortcomings and mistakes. It seemed 
like losing all our labor and expenditure to break up 
now, but there was no help for it. Our place was at 
home. 

We did not wish to invite our friends to the camp. 
They would certainly have come had they known we 
were there, but we had no accommodations for them ; 
neither had we any desire for even transient visitors. 
Besides, we both thought that we would prefer that 
our ex-boarder and his wife should not know that we 
were encamped on this little peninsula. 

We set to work to pack up and get ready for mov- 
ing, but the afternoon passed away without bringing 
Old John. Between five and six o’clock along came 
his oldest boy with a bucket of water. 

“I’m to go back after the milk,” he said. 

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“Hold up ! ” I cried. “Where is your father and 
his wagon? We’ve been waiting for him for hours.” 

“The horse is si — I mean he’s gone to Ballville for 
oats.” 

“And why didn’t he send and tell me ? ” I asked. 

“There wasn’t nobody to send,” answered the boy. 

“You are not telling the truth,” exclaimed Euphe- 
mia. “There is always some one to send in a family 
like yours.” 

To this the boy made no answer, but again said that 
he would go after the milk. 

“We want you to bring no milk,” I cried, now quite 
angry. “I want you to go down to the station, and 
tell the driver of the express-wagon to come here im- 
mediately. Do you understand ? Immediately ! ” 

The boy declared he understood, and started off quite 
willingly. We did not prefer to have the express- 
wagon, for it was too public a conveyance, and, 
besides, Old John knew exactly how to do what was 
required. But we need not have troubled ourselves. 
The express-wagon did not come. 

When it became dark, we saw that we could not 
leave that night. Even if a wagon did come, it would 
not be safe to drive over the fields in the darkness. 
And we could not go away and leave the camp equi- 
page. I proposed that Euphemia should go up to the 
house, while I remained in camp. But she declined. 
We would keep together, whatever happened, she 
said. 

We unpacked our cooking utensils and provisions, 
and had supper. There was no milk for our coffee, 
but we did not care. The evening did not pass gayly. 
We were annoyed by the conduct of Old John and the 
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express-man, though perhaps it was not his fault. 
I had given him no notice that I should need him. 

And we were greatly troubled at the continuance 
of the secrecy and subterfuge which now had become 
really necessary if we did not wish to hurt our friends’ 
feelings. 

The first thing that I thought of, when I opened 
my eyes in the morning, was the fact that we would 
have to stay there all day, for we could not move on 
Sunday. 

But Euphemia did not agree with me. After break- 
fast— we found that the water and the milk had been 
brought very early, before we were up— she stated 
that she did not intend to be treated in this way; 
she was going up to Old John’s house herself, and away 
she went. 

In less than half an hour she returned, followed by 
Old John and his wife, both looking much as if they 
had been whipped. 

“ These people,” said she, “have entered into a con- 
spiracy against us. I have questioned them thor- 
oughly, and have made them answer me. The horse 
was at home yesterday, and the boy did not go after 
the express-wagon. They thought that if they could 
keep us here until our company had gone, we would 
stay as long as we originally intended, and they would 
continue to make money out of us. But they are mis- 
taken. We are going home immediately.” 

At this point I could not help thinking that Eu- 
phemia might have consulted me in regard to her 
determination, but she was very much in earnest, and 
I would not have any discussion before these people. 

“Now, listen ! ” said Euphemia, addressing the down- 
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cast couple. “We are going home, and you two are to 
stay here all this day and to-night, and take care of 
these things. You can’t work to-day, and you can 
shut up your house and bring your whole family here 
if you choose. We will pay you for the service,— 
although you do not deserve a cent,— and we will 
leave enough here for you to eat. You must bring 
your own sheets and pillow-cases, and stay here until 
we see you on Monday morning.” 

Old John and his wife agreed to this plan with the 
greatest alacrity, apparently well pleased to get off so 
easily ; and having locked up the smaller articles of 
camp furniture, we filled a valise with our personal 
baggage and started off home. 

Our house and grounds never looked prettier than 
they did that morning as we stood at the gate. Lord 
Edward barked a welcome from his shed, and before 
we reached the door Pomona came running out, her 
face radiant. 

“Pm awful glad to see you back,” she said, “though 
I’d never have said so while you was in camp.” 

I patted the dog and looked into the garden. Every- 
thing was growing splendidly. Euphemia rushed to 
the chicken-yard. It was in first-rate order, and there 
were two broods of little yellow, puffy chicks. 

Down on her knees went my wife, to pick up the 
little creatures, one by one, press their downy bodies 
to her cheek, and call them tootsy-wootsies ; and away 
went I to the barn, followed by Pomona and soon 
afterward by Euphemia. 

The cow was all right. 

“I’ve been making butter,” said Pomona, “though 
it don’t look exactly like it ought to yet. The 
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skim-milk I didn’t know what to do with, so I gave 
it to Old John. He came for it every day, and was 
real mad once because I had given a lot of it to the 
dog, and couldn’t let him have but a pint.” 

“He ought to have been mad,” said I to Euphemia, 
as we walked up to the house. “He got ten cents a 
quart for that milk.” 

We laughed, and didn’t care. We were too glad to 
be at home. 

“But where are our friends?” I asked Pomona. 
We had actually forgotten them. 

“Oh ! they’re gone out for a walk,” said she. “They 
started off right after breakfast.” 

We were not sorry for this. It would be so much 
nicer to see our dear home again when there was 
nobody there but ourselves. Indoors we rushed. 
Our absence had been like rain on a garden. Every- 
thing now seemed fresher and brighter and more de- 
lightful. We went from room to room, and seemed to 
appreciate better than ever what a charming home 
we had. 

We were so full of the delights of our return that 
we forgot all about the Sunday dinner and our guests ; 
but Pomona, whom my wife was training to be an 
excellent cook, did not forget, and Euphemia was 
summoned to a consultation in the kitchen. 

Dinner was late ; but our guests were later. We 
waited as long as the state of the provisions and our 
appetites would permit, and then we sat down to the 
table and began to eat slowly. But they did not come. 
We finished our meal, and they were still absent. We 
now became quite anxious, and I proposed to Euphe- 
mia that we should go and look for them. 

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We started out, and our steps naturally turned 
toward the river. An unpleasant thought began to 
crowd itself into my mind, and perhaps the same 
thing happened to Euphemia, for, without saying 
anything to each other, we both turned toward the 
path that led to the peninsula. We crossed the field, 
climbed the fence, and there, in front of the tent, sat 
our old boarder, splitting sticks with the camp hatchet. 

“ Hurrah ! ” he cried, springing to his feet when he 
saw us. “How glad I am to see you back ! When 
did you return? Isn’t this splendid? ” 

“What?” I said, as we shook hands. 

“Why, this,” he cried, pointing to the tent. “Don’t 
you see ? We’re camping out.” 

“You are ! ” I exclaimed, looking around for his 
wife, while Euphemia stood motionless, actually un- 
able to make a remark. 

“Certainly we are. It’s the rarest bit of luck. My 
wife and Adele will be here directly. They’ve gone 
to look for water-cresses. But I must tell you how I 
came to make this magnificent find. We started out 
for a walk this morning, and we happened to hit on 
this place, and here we saw this gorgeous tent, with 
nobody near but a little tow-headed boy.” 

“Only a boy?” cried Euphemia. 

“Yes, a young shaver of about nine or ten. I asked 
him what he was doing here, and he told me that this 
tent belonged to a gentleman who had gone away, and 
that he was here to watch it until he came back. 
Then I asked him how long the owner would probably 
be away, and he said he supposed for a day or two. 
Then a splendid idea struck me. I offered the boy a 
dollar to let me take his place. I knew that any 
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sensible man would rather have me in charge of his 
tent than a young codger like that. The boy agreed 
as quick as lightning, and I paid him and sent him off. 
You see how little he was to be trusted ! The owner 
of this tent will be under the greatest obligations to 
me. Just look at it !” he cried. “Beds, table, stove 
—everything anybody could want. I’ve camped out 
lots of times, but never had such a tent as this. I in- 
tended coming up this afternoon after my valise, and 
to tell your girl where we are. But here is my wife 
and little Adele.” 

In the midst of the salutations and the mutual sur- 
prise, Euphemia cried : 

“But you don’t expect to camp out now? You are 
coming back to our house ? ” 

“You see,” said the ex-boarder, “we should never 
have thought of doing anything so rude had we sup- 
posed you would have returned so soon. But your 
girl gave us to understand that you would not be 
back for days, and so we felt free to go at any time ; 
and I did not hesitate to make this arrangement. And 
now that I have really taken the responsibility of the 
tent and fixtures on myself, I don’t think it would be 
right to go away and leave the place, especially as I 
don’t know where to find that boy. The owner will 
be back in a day or two, and I would like to explain 
matters to him and give up the property in good 
order into his hands. And, to tell the truth, we both 
adore camping out, and we may never have such a 
chance again. We can live here splendidly. I went 
out to forage this morning, and found an old fellow 
living near by who sold me a lot of provisions,— even 
some coffee and sugar,— and he’s to bring us some milk. 

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We’re going to have supper in about an hour ; won’t 
you stay and take a camp meal with us? It will be 
a novelty for you, at any rate.” 

We declined this invitation, as we had so lately 
dined. I looked at Euphemia with a question in my 
eye. She understood me, and gently shook her head. 
It would be a shame to make any explanations which 
might put an end to this bit of camp life, which evi- 
dently was so eagerly enjoyed by our old friend. But 
we insisted that they should come up to the house 
and see us, and they agreed to dine with us the 
next evening. On Tuesday they must return to the 
city. 

“Now, this is what I call real hospitality,” said the 
ex-boarder, warmly grasping my hand. I could not 
help agreeing with him. 

As we walked home I happened to look back, and 
saw Old John going over the fields toward the camp, 
carrying a little tin pail and a water-bucket. 

The next day, toward evening, a storm set in, and 
at the hour fixed for our dinner the rain was pouring 
down in such torrents that we did not expect our 
guests. Alter dinner the rain ceased, and as we sup- 
posed that they might not have made any prepara- 
tions for a meal, Euphemia packed up some dinner 
for them in a basket, and I took it down to the 
camp. 

They were glad to see me, and said they had had a 
splendid time all day. They were up before sunrise, 
and had explored, tramped, boated, and I don’t know 
what else. 

My basket was very acceptable, and I would have 
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stayed awhile with them, but as they were obliged to 
eat in the tent, there was no place for me to sit, it 
being too wet outside, and so I soon came away. 

We were in doubt whether or not to tell our friends 
the true history of the camp. I thought that it was 
not right to keep up the deception, while Enphemia 
declared that if they were sensitive people they would 
feel very badly at having broken up our plans by 
their visit, and then having appropriated our camp to 
themselves. She thought it would be the part of mag- 
nanimity to say nothing about it. 

I could not help seeing a good deal of force in her 
arguments, although I wished very much to set the 
thing straight, and we discussed the matter again as 
we walked down to the camp after breakfast next 
morning. 

There we found Old John sitting on a stump. He 
said nothing, but handed me a note written in lead- 
pencil on a card. It was from our ex-boarder, and 
informed me that early that morning he had found 
that there was a tug lying in the river, which would 
soon start for the city. He also found that he could 
get passage on her for his party, and as this was such 
a splendid chance to go home without the bother of 
getting up to the station, he had just bundled his 
family and his valise on board, and was very sorry 
they did not have time to come up and bid us good- 
by. The tent he left in charge of a very respectable 
man from whom he had had supplies. 

That morning I had the camp equipage packed up 
and expressed to its owner. We did not care to camp 
out any more that season, but thought it would be 
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better to spend the rest of my vacation at the sea- 
shore. 

Our ex-boarder wrote to us that he and his wife 
were anxious that we should return their visit during 
my holidays ; but as we did not see exactly how we 
could return a visit of the kind, we did not try to 
do it. 


130 


CHAPTER XII 


LORD EDWARD AND THE TREE-MAN 

It was winter at Rudder Grange. The season was the 
same at other places, but that fact did not particularly 
interest Euphemia and myself. It was winter with 
us, and we were ready for it. That was the great 
point, and it made us proud to think that we had not 
been taken unawares, notwithstanding the many things 
that were to be thought of on a little farm like ours. 

It is true that we had always been prepared for 
winter, wherever we had lived ; but this was a dif- 
ferent case. In other days it did not matter much 
whether we were ready or not ; but now our house, 
our cow, our poultry, and, indeed, ourselves, might 
have suffered— there is no way of finding out exactly 
how much— if we had not made all possible prepara- 
tions for the coming of cold weather. 

But there was a great deal yet to be thought of and 
planned out, although we were ready for winter. The 
next thing to think of was spring. 

We laid out the farm. We decided where we would 
have wheat, corn, potatoes, and oats. We would have 
a man by the day to sow and reap. The intermediate 
processes I thought I could attend to myself. 

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Everything was talked over, ciphered over, and 
freely discussed by my wife and myself, except one 
matter, which I planned and worked out alone, doing 
most of the necessary calculations at the office, so as 
not to excite Euphemia’s curiosity. 

I had determined to buy a horse. This would be 
one of the most important events of our married life, 
and it demanded a great deal of thought, which I 
gave it. 

The horse was chosen for me by a friend. He was 
an excellent beast, the horse, excelling, as my friend 
told me, in muscle and wit. Nothing better than this 
could be said about a horse. He was a sorrel animal, 
quite handsome, gentle enough for Euphemia to drive, 
and not too high-minded to do a little farm-work, if 
necessary. He was exactly the animal I needed. 

The carriage was not quite such a success. The 
horse having cost a good deal more than I expected 
to pay, I found that I could only afford a second-hand 
carriage. I bought a good, serviceable vehicle which 
would hold four persons, if necessary, and in which 
there was room enough to pack parcels and baskets. 
It was with great satisfaction that I contemplated 
this feature of the carriage, which was rather a rusty - 
looking affair, although sound and strong enough. 
The harness was new, and set off the horse admirably. 

On the afternoon when my purchases were com- 
pleted, I did not come home by the train. I drove 
home in my own carriage, drawn by my own horse ! 
The ten miles’ drive was over a smooth road, and the 
sorrel travelled splendidly. If I had been a line of 
kings a mile long, all in their chariots of state, with 
gold and silver, and outriders, and music, and banners 
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waving in the wind, I could not have been prouder 
than when I drew up in front of my house. 

There was a wagon-gate at one side of the front 
fence, which had never been used except by the men 
who brought coal 5 and I got out and opened this, 
very quietly, so as not to attract the attention of 
Euphemia. It was earlier than I usually returned, 
and she would not be expecting me. I was then 
about to lead the horse up a somewhat grass-grown 
carriageway to the front door, but I reflected that 
Euphemia might be looking out of some of the win- 
dows, and I would better drive up. So I got in and 
drove very slowly to the door. 

However, she heard the unaccustomed noise of 
wheels, and looked out of the parlor window. She 
did not see me, but immediately came around to the 
door. I hurried out of the carriage so quickly that, 
not being familiar with the steps, I barely escaped 
tripping. 

When she opened the front door she was surprised 
to see me standing by the horse. 

“Have you hired a carriage?” she cried. “Are we 
going to ride ? ” 

“My dear,” said I, as I took her by the hand, “we 
are going to ride. But I have not hired a carriage. 
I have bought one. Do you see this horse? He is 
ours— our own horse.” 

If you could have seen the face that was turned up 
to me— all you other men in the world— you would 
have torn your hair in despair. 

Afterward she went around and around that horse ; 
she patted his smooth sides ; she looked with admira- 
tion at his strong, well-formed legs ; she stroked his 
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head; she smoothed his mane; she was brimful of 
joy. 

When I had brought the horse some water in a 
bucket— and what a pleasure it was to water one’s 
own horse !— Euphemia rushed into the house and got 
her hat and cloak, and we took a little drive. 

I doubt if any horse ever drew two happier people. 
Euphemia said but little about the carriage. That 
was a necessary adjunct, and it was good enough for 
the present. But the horse ! How nobly and with 
what vigor he pulled us up the hills, and how carefully 
and strongly he held the carriage back as we went 
down! How easily he trotted over the level road, 
caring nothing for the ten miles he had gone that 
afternoon ! What a sensation of power it gave us to 
think that all that strength and speed and endurance 
was ours, that it would go where we wished, that it 
would wait for us as long as we chose, that it was at 
our service day and night— that it was a horse, and 
we owned it ! 

When we returned, Pomona saw us come in,— she 
had not known of our drive,— and when she heard the 
news she was as wild with proud delight as anybody. 
She wanted to unharness him, but this I could not 
allow. We did not wish to be selfish, but after she 
had seen and heard what we thought was enough for 
her, we were obliged to send her back to the kitchen 
for the sake of the dinner. 

Then we unharnessed him. I say we, for Euphemia 
stood by and I explained everything, for some day, 
she said, she might want to do it herself. Then I led 
him into the stable. How nobly he trod, and how 
finely his hoofc sounded on the stable floor ! 

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There was hay in the mow, and I had brought a 
bag of oats under the seat of the carriage. 

“Isn’t it just delightful,” said Euphemia, “that we 
haven’t any man? If we had a man he would take 
the horse at the door, and we should be deprived of 
all this. It wouldn’t be half like owning a horse.” 

In the morning I drove down to the station, Eu- 
phemia by my side. She drove back, and Old John 
came up and attended to the horse. This he was to 
do, for the present, for a small stipend. In the after- 
noon Euphemia came down after me. How I enjoyed 
those drives ! Before this I had thought it ever so 
much more pleasant and healthful to walk to and 
from the station than to ride, but then I did not own 
a horse. At night I attended to everything, Euphe- 
mia generally following me about the stable with a 
lantern. When the days grew longer we would have 
delightful drives after dinner, and even now we planned 
to have early breakfasts, and go to the station by the 
longest possible way. 

One day in the following spring I was coming home 
from the station with Euphemia,— we seldom took 
pleasure drives now, we were so busy on the place,— 
and as we reached the house I heard the dog barking 
savagely. He was loose in the little orchard by the 
side of the house. As I drove in, Pomona came run- 
ning to the carriage. 

“Man up the tree ! ” she shouted. 

I helped Euphemia out, left the horse standing by 
the door, and ran to the dog, followed by my wife and 
Pomona. There really was a man up the tree, and 
Lord Edward was doing his best to get at him, spring- 
ing wildly at the tree and fairly shaking with rage. 

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I looked up at the man. He was a thoroughbred 
tramp, burly, dirty, generally unkempt ; but, unlike 
most tramps, he looked very much frightened. His 
position, on a high crotch of an apple-tree, was not 
altogether comfortable, and although, for the present, 
it was safe, the fellow seemed to have a wavering faith 
in the strength of apple-tree branches, and the moment 
he saw me, he earnestly besought me to take that dog 
away and let him down. 

I made no answer, but turning to Pomona, I asked 
her what all this meant. 

“Why, sir, you see, 77 said she, “I was in the kitchen 
bakin 7 pies, and this fellow must have got over the 
fence at the side of the house, for the dog didn’t see 
him, and the first thing I knowed he was stickin 7 his 
head in the window, and he asked me to give him 
somethin 7 to eat. And when I said I 7 d see in a minute 
if there was anything for him, he says to me , c Gimme 
a piece of one of them pies 7 — pies I 7 d just baked and 
was settin 7 to cool on the kitchen table! ‘Ho, sir, 7 
says I, ‘I’m not goin 7 to cut one of them pies for you, 
or any one like you. 7 ‘ All right ! 7 says he. i I 7 11 come 
in and help myself. 7 He must have known there was 
no man about, and comin 7 the way he did, he hadn’t 
seen the dog. So he come round to the kitchen door ; 
but I shot out before he got there and unchained Lord 
Edward. I guess he saw the dog when he got to the 
door, and at any rate he heard the chain clankin’, and 
he didn’t go in, but just put for the gate. But Lord 
Edward was after him so quick that he hadn’t no time 
to go to no gates. It was all he could do to scoot up 
this tree, and if he’d been a millionth part of a minute 
later he’d ’a 7 been in another world by this time. 77 

136 


RUDDER GRANGE 


The man, who had not attempted to interrupt Po- 
mona’s speech, now began again to implore me to let 
him down, while Euphemia looked pitifully at him, 
and was about, I think, to intercede with me in his 
favor, but my attention was drawn off from her by 
the strange conduct of the dog. Believing, I suppose, 
that he might leave the tramp for a moment, now 
that I had arrived, he had dashed away to another 
tree, where he was barking furiously, standing on his 
hind legs and clawing at the trunk. 

“ What’s the matter over there?” I asked. 

“Oh, that’s the other fellow,” said Pomona. “He’s 
no harm.” And then, as the tramp made a movement 
as if he would try to come down and make a rush for 
safety during the absence of the dog, she called out, 
“Here, boy ! here, boy ! ” and in an instant Lord 
Edward was again raging at his post at the foot of 
the apple-tree. 

I was grievously puzzled by all this, and walked 
over to the other tree, followed, as before, by Euphe- 
mia and Pomona. 

“This one,” said the latter, “is a tree-man — ” 

“I should think so,” said I, as I caught sight of a 
person in gray trousers standing among the branches 
of a cherry-tree not very far from the kitchen door. 
The tree was not a large one, and the branches were 
not strong enough to allow him to sit down on them, 
although they supported him well enough, as he stood 
close to the trunk just out of reach of Lord Edward. 

“This is a very unpleasant position, sir,” said he, 
when I reached the tree. “I simply came into your 
yard on a matter of business, and finding that raging 
beast attacking a person in a tree, I had barely time 
137 


RUDDER GRANGE 


to get up into this tree myself before he dashed at 
me. Luckily I was out of his reach ; but I very much 
fear I have lost some of my property.’ 7 

“No, he hasn’t,” said Pomona. “It was a big book 
he dropped. I picked it up and took it into the 
house. It’s full of pictures of pears and peaches and 
flowers. I’ve been lookin’ at it. That’s how I knew 
what he was. And there was no call for his gittin’ up 
a tree. Lord Edward never would have gone after 
him if he hadn’t run as if he had guilt on his soul.” 

“I suppose, then,” said I, addressing the individual 
in the cherry-tree, “that you came here to sell me 
some trees.” 

“Yes, sir,” said he, quickly, “trees, shrubs, vines, 
evergreens— everything suitable for a gentleman’s 
country villa. I can sell you something quite re- 
markable, sir, in the way of cherry-trees— French 
ones, just imported ; bear fruit three times the size of 
anything that could be produced on a tree like this. 
And pears— fruit of the finest flavor and enormous 
size—” 

“Yes,” said Pomona. “I seen them in the book. 
But they must grow on a ground- vine. No tree 
couldn’t hold such pears as them.” 

Here Euphemia reproved Pomona’s forwardness, 
and I invited the tree-agent to get down out of the 
tree. 

“Thank you,” said he, “but not while that dog is 
loose. If you will kindly chain him up, I will get my 
book and show you specimens of some of the finest 
small fruit in the world, all imported from the first 
nurseries of Europe— the Bed-gold Amber Muscat 
grape, the—” 


138 


RUDDER GRANGE 

“Oh, please let him down!” said Euphemia, her 
eyes beginning to sparkle. 

I slowly walked toward the tramp-tree, revolving 
various matters in my mind. We had not spent much 
money on the place during the winter, and we now 
had a small sum which we intended to use for the 
advantage of the farm, but had not yet decided what 
to do with it. It behooved me to be careful. 

I told Pomona to run and get me the dog-chain, 
and I stood under the tree, listening, as well as I 
could, to the tree-agent talking to Euphemia, and 
paying no attention to the impassioned entreaties of 
the tramp in the crotch above me. When the chain 
was brought, I hooked one end of it in Lord Edward’s 
collar, and then I took a firm grasp of the other. 
Telling Pomona to bring the tree-agent’s book from 
the house, I called to that individual to get down 
from his tree. He promptly obeyed, and, taking the 
book from Pomona, began to show the pictures to 
Euphemia. 

“You had better hurry, sir,” I called out. “I can’t 
hold this dog very long.” And, indeed, Lord Edward 
had made a run toward the agent which jerked me 
very forcibly in his direction. But a movement by 
the tramp had quickly brought the dog back to his 
more desired victim. 

“If you will just tie up that dog, sir,” said the agent, 
“and come this way, I would like to show you the 
Meltinagua pear— dissolves in the mouth like snow, 
sir ; trees will bear next year.” 

“Oh, come look at the Royal Sparkling Ruby 
grape !” cried Euphemia. “It glows in the sun like 
a gem.” 


139 


RUDDER GRANGE 


“Yes/’ said the agent, “and fills the air with fra- 
grance during the whole month of September—” 

“I tell you/’ I shouted, “I can’t hold this dog an- 
other minute ! The chain is cutting the skin off my 
hands. Run, sir, run ! I’m going to let go ! ” 

“Run ! run ! ” cried Pomona. “Fly for your life ! ” 

The agent now began to be frightened, and shut up 
his book. 

“If you only could see the plates, sir, I’m sure—” 

“Are you ready?” I cried, as the dog, excited by 
Pomona’s wild shouts, made a bolt in his direction. 

“Good day, if I must,” said the agent, as he hur- 
ried to the gate. But there he stopped. 

“There is nothing, sir,” he said, “that would so im- 
prove your place as a row of the Spitzenberg Sweet- 
scented Balsam fir along this fence. I’ll sell you 
three-year-old trees—” 

“He’s loose ! ’ I shouted, as I dropped the chain. 

In a second the agent was on the other side of the 
gate. Lord Edward made a dash toward him, but, 
stopping suddenly, flew back to the tree of the tramp 

“'If you should conclude, sir,” said the tree-agent, 
looking over the fence, “to have a row of those firs 
along here — ” 

“My good sir,” said I, “there is no row of firs there 
now, and the fence is not very high. My dog, as you 
see, is very much excited, and I cannot answer for the 
consequences if he takes it into his head to jump 
over.” 

The tree-agent turned and walked slowly away. 

“How, look-a-here,” cried the tramp from the tree, 
in the voice of a very ill-used person, “ain’t you goin’ 
to fasten up that dog and let me git down?” 

140 


RUDDER GRANGE 


I walked up close to the tree and addressed him. 

“No,” said I, “I am not. When a man comes to my 
place, bullies a young girl who is about to relieve 
his hunger, and then boldly determines to enter my 
house and help himself to my property, I don’t pro- 
pose to fasten up any dog that may happen to be after 
him. If I had another dog, I’d let him loose, and 
give this faithful beast a rest. You can do as you 
please. You can come down and have it out with 
the dog, or you can stay up there until I have had 
my dinner. Then I will drive down to the village 
and bring up the constable and deliver you into his 
hands. We want no such fellows as you about.” 

With that, I unhooked the chain from Lord Edward, 
and walked off to put up the horse. The man shouted 
after me, but I paid no attention. I did not feel in a 
good humor with him. 

Euphemia was much disturbed by the various oc- 
currences of the afternoon. She was sorry for the 
man in the tree ; she was sorry that the agent for the 
Royal Ruby grape had been obliged to go away $ and 
I had a good deal of trouble during dinner to make 
her see things in the proper light. But I succeeded 
at last. 

I did not hurry through dinner, and when we had 
finished I went to my work at the barn. Tramps are 
not generally pressed for time, and Pomona had been 
told to give our captive something to eat. 

I was just locking the door of the carriage-house 
when Pomona came running to me to tell me that the 
tramp wanted to see me about something very im- 
portant— just a minute, he said. I put the key in my 
pocket and walked over to the tree. It was now 
141 


RUDDER GRANGE 


almost dark, but I could see that the dog, the tramp, 
and the tree still kept their respective places. 

“ Look-a-here,” said the individual in the crotch, 
“you don’t know how dreadful oneasy these limbs gits 
after you’ve been settin’ up here as long as I have. 
And I don’t want to have nuthin’ to do with no con- 
stables. I’ll tell you what I’ll do : if you’ll chain up 
that dog and let me go, I’ll fix things so that you’ll 
not be troubled no more by no tramps.” 

“How will you do that?” I asked. 

“Oh, never you mind,” said he. “I’ll give you my 
word of honor I’ll do it. There’s a reg’lar under- 
stand^’ among us fellers, you know.” 

I considered the matter. The word of honor of a 
fellow such as he was could not be worth much, but 
the merest chance of getting rid of tramps should not 
be neglected. I went in to talk to Euphemia about 
it, although I knew what she would say. I reasoned 
with myself as much as with her. 

“If we put this one fellow in prison for a few weeks,” 
I said, “the benefit is not very great. If we are freed 
from all tramps for the season, the benefit is very 
great. Shall we try for the greatest good ? ” 

“Certainly,” said Euphemia ; “and his legs must be 
dreadfully stiff.” 

So I went out, and after a struggle of some minutes 
I chained Lord Edward to a post at a little distance 
from the apple-tree. When he was secure, the tramp 
descended nimbly from his perch, notwithstanding his 
stiff legs, and hurried out of the gate. He stopped to 
make no remarks over the fence. With a wild howl 
of disappointed ambition, Lord Edward threw him- 
self after him. But the chain held. 


142 


RUDDER GRANGE 


A lane of moderate length led from our house to 
the main road, and the next day, as we were riding 
home, I noticed on the trunk of a large tree which 
stood at the corner of the lane and road a curious 
mark. I drew up to see what it was, but we could 
not make it out. It was a very rude device, cut 
deeply into the tree, and somewhat resembled a square, 
a circle, a triangle, and a cross, with some smaller 
marks beneath it. I felt sure that our tramp had cut 
it, and that it had some significance which would be 
understood by the members of his fraternity. 

And it must have had, for no tramps came near us 
all that summer. We were visited by a needy person 
now and then, but by no member of the regular army 
of tramps. 

One afternoon, that fall, I walked home, and at the 
corner of the lane I saw a tramp looking up at the 
mark on the tree, which was still quite distinct. 

“What does that mean?” I said, stepping up to 
him. 

“How do I know?” said the man, “and what do 
you want to know fur ? ” 

“Just out of curiosity,” I said. “I have often no- 
ticed it. I think you can tell me what it means, and 
if you will do so TO give you a dollar.” 

“And keep mum about it?” said the man. 

“Yes,” I replied, taking out the dollar.” 

“All right!” said the tramp. “That sign means 
that the man that lives up this lane is a mean, stingy 
cuss, with a wicked dog, and it’s no good to go there.” 

I handed him the dollar and went away, perfectly 
satisfied with my reputation. 

I wish here to make some mention of Euphemia’s 

143 


RUDDER GRANGE 

methods of work in her chicken-yard. She kept a 
book, which she at first called her “Fowl Record,” but 
she afterward changed the name to “Poultry Register.” 
I never could thoroughly understand this book, al- 
though she has often explained every part of it to me. 
She had pages for registering the age, description, 
time of purchase or of birth, and subsequent perform- 
ances of every fowl in her yard. She had divisions of 
the book for expenses, profits, probable losses and posi- 
tive losses. She noted the number of eggs put under 
each setting hen, the number of eggs cracked per day, 
the number spoiled, and, finally, the number hatched. 
Each chick, on emerging from its shell, was registered, 
and an account kept of its subsequent life and adven- 
tures. There were frequent calculations regarding 
the advantages of various methods of treatment, and 
there were statements of the results of a great many 
experiments— something like this : “Set Toppy and 
her sister Pinky, April 2, 187- ; Toppy with twelve 
eggs— three Brahma, four common, and five Leghorn ; 
Pinky with thirteen eggs (as she weighs four ounces 
more than her sister), of which three were Leghorn, 
five common, and five Brahma. During the 22d and 
23d of April (same year) Toppy hatched out four 
Brahmas, two commons, and three Leghorns, while 
her sister, on these days and the morning of the day 
following, hatched two Leghorns, six commons, and 
only one Brahma. Now, could Toppy, who had only 
three Brahma eggs and hatched out four of that 
breed, have exchanged eggs with her sister, thus mak- 
ing it possible for her to hatch out six common 
chickens when she only had five eggs of that kind? 
Or did the eggs get mixed up in some way before 
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RUDDER GRANGE 

going into the possession of the hens? Look into 
probabilities.” 

These probabilities must have puzzled Euphemia a 
great deal, but they never disturbed her equanimity. 
She was always as tranquil and good-humored about 
her poultry-yard as if every hen laid an egg every 
day, and a hen-chick was hatched out of every egg. 

For it may be remembered that the principle 
underlying Euphemia’s management of her poultry 
was what might be designated as the “ cumulative 
hatch.” That is, she wished every chicken hatched 
in her yard to become the mother of a brood of her 
own during the year, and every one of this brood to 
raise another brood the next year, and so on, in a 
kind of geometrical progression. This plan called for 
a great many mother fowls, and so Euphemia based 
her highest hopes on a great annual preponderance of 
hens. 

We ate a good many young roosters that fall, for 
Euphemia would not allow all the products of her 
yard to go to market, and, also, a great many eggs and 
fowls were sold. She had not contented herself with 
her original stock of poultry, but had bought fowls 
during the winter, and she certainly had extraordinary 
good luck, or else her extraordinary system worked 
extraordinarily well. 


145 


CHAPTER XIII 


POMONA’S NOVEL 

It was in the latter part of August of that year that 
it became necessary for some one in the office in which 
I was engaged to go to St. Louis to attend to impor- 
tant business. Everything seemed to point to me as 
the fit person, for I understood the particular business 
better than any one else. I felt that I ought to go, 
but I did not altogether like to do it. I went home, 
and Euphemia and I talked over the matter far into 
the regulation sleeping-hours. 

There were very good reasons why we should go, 
for of course I would not think of taking such a 
journey without Euphemia. In the first place, it 
would be of advantage to me, in my business connec- 
tion, to take the trip, and then, it would be such a 
charming journey for us. We had never been west of 
the Alleghanies, and nearly all the country we would 
see would be new to us. We could come home by 
the Great Lakes and Niagara, and the prospect was 
delightful to both of us. But then, we would have to 
leave Rudder Grange for at least three weeks, and 
how could we do that? 

This was indeed a difficult question to answer. 
Who could take care of our garden, our poultry, our 
146 


RUDDER GRANGE 


horse and cow, and all their complicated belongings? 
The garden was in admirable condition. Our vege- 
tables were coming in every day in just that fresh and 
satisfactory condition— altogether unknown to people 
who buy vegetables— for which I had labored so faith- 
fully, and about which I had had so many cheerful 
anticipations. As to Euphemia’s chicken-yard with 
Euphemia away— the subject was too great for us. 
We did not even discuss it. But we would give up 
all the pleasures of our home for the chance of this 
most desirable excursion, if we could but think of 
some one who would come and take care of the place 
while we were gone. Rudder Grange could not run 
itself for three weeks. 

We thought of every available person. Old John 
would not do. We did not feel that we could trust 
him. We thought of several of our friends ; but there 
was, in both our minds, a certain shrinking from the 
idea of handing over the place to any of them for such 
a length of time. For my part, I said, I would rather 
leave Pomona in charge than any one else ; but then, 
Pomona was young and a girl. Euphemia agreed with 
me that she would rather trust her than any one else, 
but she also agreed in regard to the disqualifications. 
So when I went to the office the next morning we 
had fully determined to go on the trip if we could 
find some one to take charge of our place while we 
were gone. When I returned from the office in the 
afternoon I had agreed to go to St. Louis. By this 
time I had no choice in the matter, unless I wished 
to interfere very much with my own interests. We 
were to start in two days. If in that time we could 
get any one to stay at the place, very well; if not, 
147 


RUDDER GRANGE 

Pomona must assume the charge. We were not able 
to get any one, and Pomona did assume the charge. 
It is surprising how greatly relieved we felt when we 
were obliged to come to this conclusion. The arrange- 
ment was exactly what we wanted, and now that there 
was no help for it, our consciences were easy. 

We felt sure that there would be no danger to Po- 
mona. Lord Edward would be with her, and she was 
a young person who was extraordinarily well able to 
take care of herself. Old John would be within call 
in case she needed him, and I borrowed a bull-dog to 
be kept in the house at night. Pomona herself was 
more than satisfied with the plan. 

We made out, the night before we left, a long and 
minute series of directions for her guidance in house- 
hold, garden, and farm matters, and directed her to 
keep a careful record of everything noteworthy that 
might occur. She was fully supplied with all the 
necessaries of life, and it has seldom happened that a 
young girl has been left in such a responsible and in- 
dependent position as that in which we left Pomona. 
She was very proud of it. 

Our journey was ten times more delightful than we 
had expected it would be, and successful in every 
way ; yet, although we enjoyed every hour of the 
trip, we were no sooner fairly on our way home than 
we became so wildly anxious to get there that we 
reached Rudder Grange on Wednesday, whereas we 
had written that we would be home on Thursday. 
We arrived early in the afternoon, and walked up from 
the station, leaving our baggage to be sent in the ex- 
press-wagon. As we approached our dear home, we 
wanted to run, we were so eager to see it. 

148 


RUDDER GRANGE 


There it was, the same as ever. I lifted the gate- 
latch ; the gate was locked. We ran to the carriage- 
gate ; that was locked, too. Just then I noticed a 
placard on the fence ; it was not printed, but the let- 
tering was large, apparently made with ink and a 
brush. It read : 

TO BE SOLD 
FOB TAXES 

We stood and looked at each other. Euphemia 
turned pale. 

“What does this mean?” said I. “Has our land- 
lord—” 

I could say no more. The dreadful thought arose 
that the place might pass away from us. We were 
not yet ready to buy it. But I did not put the 
thought in words. There was a field next to our lot, 
and I got over the fence and helped Euphemia over. 

Then we climbed our side-fence. This was more 
difficult, but we accomplished it without thinking 
much about its difficulties ; our hearts were too full of 
painful apprehensions. I hurried to the front door ; 
it was locked. All the lower windows were shut. We 
went around to the kitchen. What surprised us more 
than anything else was the absence of Lord Edward. 
Had he been sold % 

Before we reached the back part of the house, Eu- 
phemia said she felt faint and must sit down. I led 
her to a tree near by, under which I had made a 
rustic chair. The chair was gone. She sat on the 
grass, and I ran to the pump for some water. I looked 
for the bright tin dipper which always hung by the 
pump. It was not there. But I had a travelling-cup 
149 


RUDDER GRANGE 


in my pocket, and as I was taking it out I looked 
around me. There was an air of bareness over every- 
thing. I did not know what it all meant, but I know 
that my hand trembled as I took hold of the pump- 
handle and began to pump. 

At the first sound of the pump-handle I heard a 
deep bark in the direction of the barn, and then furi- 
ously around the corner came Lord Edward. Before 
I had filled the cup he was bounding about me. I 
believe the glad welcome of the dog did more to re- 
vive Euphemia than the water. He was delighted to 
see us, and in a moment up came Pomona, running 
from the barn. Her face was radiant, too. We felt 
relieved. Here were two friends who looked as if 
they were neither sold nor ruined. 

Pomona quickly saw that we were ill at ease, .and 
before I could put a question to her she divined the 
cause. Her countenance fell. 

“You know,” said she, “you said you wasn’t cornin’ 
till to-morrow. If you only had come then — I was 
goin’ to have everything just exactly right— an’ now 
you had to climb in—” 

And the poor girl looked as if she might cry, which 
would have been a wonderful thing for Pomona to do. 

“Tell me one thing,” said I. “What about— those 
taxes?” 

“Oh, that’s all right,” she cried. “Don’t think 
another minute about that. I’ll tell you all about it 
soon. But come in first, and I’ll get you some lunch 
in a minute.” 

We were somewhat relieved by Pomona’s statement 
that it was “all right” in regard to the tax-poster, 
but we were very anxious to know all about the 
150 


RUDDER GRANGE 


matter. Pomona, however, gave us little chance to 
ask her any questions. As soon as she had made 
ready our lunch, she asked us, as a particular favor, 
to give her three-quarters of an hour to herself. “ And 
then,” said she, “I’ll have everything looking just as if 
it was to-morrow.” 

We respected her feelings, for of course it was a 
great disappointment to her to be taken thus unawares, 
and we remained in the dining-room until she ap- 
peared and announced that she was ready for us to 
go about. We availed ourselves quickly of the privi- 
lege, and Euphemia hurried to the chicken-yard, 
while I bent my steps toward the garden and barn. 
As I went out I noticed that the rustic chair was in 
its place, and passing the pump I looked for the dipper. 
It was there. I asked Pomona about the chair, but 
she did not answer as quickly as was her habit. 

“Would you rather,” said she, “hear it all together, 
when you come in, or have it in little bits, head and 
tail, all of a jumble?” 

I called to Euphemia and asked her what she 
thought, and she was so anxious to get to her chickens 
that she said she would much rather wait and hear it 
all together. We found everything in perfect order 
—the garden was even free from weeds, a thing I had 
not expected. If it had not been for that cloud on 
the front fence I should have been happy enough. 
Pomona had said it was all right, but she could not 
have paid the taxes— however, I would wait ; and I 
went to the barn. 

When Euphemia came in from the poultry-yard she 
called me and said she was in a hurry to hear Pomona’s 
account of things. So I went in, and we sat on the 
151 


RUDDER GRANGE 


side-porch, where it was shady, while Pomona, pro- 
ducing some sheets of foolscap paper, took her seat on 
the upper step 

“I wrote down the things of any account that hap- 
pened,” said she, “as you told me to, and while I was 
about it I thought Pd make it like a novel. It would 
be jus’ as true, and p’r’aps more amusin’. I suppose 
you don’t mind?” 

No, we did not mind. So she went on : 

“I haven’t got no name for my novel. I intended 
to think one out to-night. I wrote this all of nights. 
And I don’t read the first chapters, for they tell about 
my birth and my parentage and my early adventures. 
I’ll just come down to what happened to me while 
you was away, because you’ll be more anxious to hear 
about that. All that’s written here is true, jus’ the 
same as if I told it to you, but I’ve put it into 
novel language because it seems to come easier to 


me . 77 ...... 

And . then, in a voice somewhat different from her 
ordinary tones, as if the “novel language ” demanded 
it, she began to read : 

“Chapter Five. The Lonely house and the Faithful 
friend. Thus was I left alone. None but two dogs to 
keep me com-pa-ny. I milk-ed the lowing kine and 
water-ed and fed the steed, and then, after my fru-gal 
repast, I clos-ed the man-si-on, shutting out all re- 
collections of the past and also foresights into the 
future. That night was a me-mor-able one. I slept 
soundly until the break of morn, but had the events 
transpired which afterwards occur-red, what would 
have hap-pen-ed to me no tongue can tell. Early the 
next day nothing hap-pen-ecL/ Soon after breakfast, 
152 ^ 


RUDDER GRANGE 


the vener-able John came to bor-row some ker o sene 
oil and a half a pound of sugar, but his attempt was 
foil-ecL I knew too well the in-sid-i-ous foe. In the 
very out-set of his vil-li-an-y I sent him home with an 
empty can. For two long days I wander-ed amid the 
ver-dant pathways of the gar-den and to the bam, 
whenever and anon my du-ty call-ed me, nor did I 
eer neg-lect the fowlery. No cloud o’er-spread this 
happy pe-ri-od of my life. But the cloud was ri-sing 
in the hori-zon although I saw it not. 

“It was about twenty-five minutes after eleven, on 
the morning of a Thursday, that I sat pondering in 
my mind the ques-ti-on what to do with the butter 
and the veg-et-ables. Here was butter, and here was 
green com and lima-beans and trophy tomats, far 
more than I e’er could use. And here was a horse, 
idly cropping the fol-i-age in the field, for as my em- 
ployer had advis-ed and order-ed I had put the steed 
to grass. And here was a wagon, none too new, which, 
had it the top taken off, or even the curtains roll-ed 
up, would do for a li-cen-sed vender. With the truck 
and butter, and mayhap some milk, I could load that 
wagon — ” 

“Oh, Pomona,” interrupted Euphemia, “you don’t 
mean to say that you were thinking of doing anything 
like that ? ” 

“Well, I was just beginnin’ to think of it,” said 
Pomona, “but of course I couldn’t have gone away 
and left the house. And you’ll see Ijlidn’t do it.” 
And then she continued her novel : /‘‘“But while my 
thoughts were thus employ-ed, I heard Lord Edward 
burst into bark-fr 



At this EuphenTfa and I could not help bursting 


153 


RUDDER GRANGE 


into laughter. Pomona did not seem at all confused, 
hut went on with her reading : 

/ “I hurried to the door, and, look-ing out, I saw a 
wagon at the gate. Re-pair-ing there, I saw a man. 
Said he, ‘Wilt open this gate?’ I had fas-ten-ed up 
the gates and remov-ed every steal-able ar-ticle from 
the yard.” 

Euphemia and I looked at each other. This ex- 
plained the absence of the rustic seat and the dipper. 

“Thus, with my mind at ease, I could let my faith- 
ful fri-end, the dog, for he it was, roam with me 
through the grounds, while the fi-erce bull-dog 
guard-ed the man-si-on within. * Then said I, quite 
bold, unto him, ‘No ; I let in no man here. My em- 
ployer and em-ploy-er-ess are now from home. What 
do you want?’ Then says he, as bold as brass, ‘Pve 
come to put the light-en-ing rods upon the house. 
Open the gate. 7 ‘What rods?’ says I. ‘The rods as 
was order- ed,’ says he, ‘open the gate.’ I stood and 
gaz-ed at him. Full well I saw through his pinch- 
beck mask. I knew his tricks. In the ab-sence of my 
em-ploy-er, he would put up rods, and ever so many 
more than was wanted, and likely, too, some miser- 
able trash that would attrack the light-en-ing, instead 
of keep-ing it off. Then, as it would spoil the house 
to take them down, they would be kept, and pay de- 
manded. ‘No, sir,’ says I. ‘No light-en-ing rods 
upon this house whilst I stand here,’ and with that I 
walk-ed away, and let Lord Edward loose. The man 
he storm-ed with pas-si-on. His eyes flash-ed fire. 
He would e’en have scal-ed the gate, but when he saw 
the dog he did forbear. As it was then near noon, I 
strode away to feed the fowls ; but when I did re- 
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turn, I saw a sight which froze the blood with-in my 
veins—” 

“The dog didn’t kill him?” cried Euphemia. 

“Oh, no, ma’am !” said Pomona. “ You’ll see that 
that wasn’t it. At one corn-er of the lot, in front, a 
base boy, who had accompa-ni-ed this man, was bang- 
ing on the fence with a long stick, and thus attack- 
ing to hisself the rage of Lord Edward, while the vile 
intrig-er of a light-en-ing rod-der had brought a 
lad-der to the other side of the house, up which he 
had now as-cend-ed, and was on the roof. What 
horrors fill-ed my soul ! How my form trembl-ed ! 
This,” continued Pomona, “is the end of the novel;” 
and she laid her foolscap pages on the porch. J 

Euphemia and I exclaimed, with one vol#e, against 
this. We had just reached the most exciting part, 
and, I added, we had heard nothing yet about that 
affair of the taxes. 

“You see, sir,” said Pomona, “it took me so long to 
write out the chapters about my birth, my parentage, 
and my early adventures, that I hadn’t time to finish 
up the rest. But I can tell you what happened after 
that jus’ as well as if I had writ it out.” And so she 
went on, much more glibly than before, with the ac- 
count of the doings of the lightning-rod man. 

“There was that wretch on top of the house, a-fixin’ 
his old rods an’ hammerin’ away for dear life. He’d 
brought his ladder over the side-fence, where the dog, 
a-barkin’ an’ plungin’ at the boy outside, couldn’t see 
him. I stood dumb for a minute, an’ then I knowed I 
had him. I rushed into the house, got a piece of well- 
rope, tied it to the bull-dog’s collar, an’ dragged him 
out an’ fastened him to the bottom rung of the 
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ladder. Then I walks over to the front fence with 
Lord Edward’s chain, for I knew that if he got at that 
bull-dog there’d be times, for they’d never been al- 
lowed to see each other yet. So says I to the boy, 
‘ I’m goin’ to tie up the dog, so you needn’t be afraid 
of his jumpin’ over the fence’ — which he couldn’t 
do, or the boy would have been a corpse for twenty 
minutes, or maybe half an hour. The boy kinder 
laughed, an’ said I needn’t mind, which I didn’t. 
Then I went to the gate, an’ I clicked to the horse 
which was standin’ there, an’ off he starts, as good as 
gold, an’ trots down the road. The boy he said some- 
thin’ or other pretty bad, an’ away he goes after him ; 
but the horse was a-trottin’ real fast, an’ had a good 
start.” 

“How on earth could you ever think of doing such 
things?” said Euphemia. “That horse might have 
upset the wagon and broken all the lightning-rods, 
besides running over I don’t know how many people.” 

“But you see, ma’am, that wasn’t my lookout,” said 
Pomona. “I was a-defendin’ the house, an’ the 
enemy must expect to have things happen to him. 
So then I hears an awful row on the roof, an’ there 
was the man just coming down the ladder. He’d 
heard the horse go off, an’ when he got about half- 
way down, an’ caught a sight of the bull-dog, he was 
madder than ever you seed a lightnin’ -rodder in all 
your born days. ‘Take that dog off of there!’ he 
yelled at me. ‘Ho, I won’t,’ says I. ‘I never see a 
girl like you since I was born ! ’ he screams at me. ‘ I 
guess it would ’a’ been better fur you if you had,’ says 
I. An’ then he was so mad he couldn’t stand it any 
longer, an’ he comes down as low as he could, an’ 
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when he saw just how long the rope was,— which was 
pretty short,— he made a jump, an’ landed clear of 
the dog. Then he went on dreadful because he 
couldn’t get at his ladder to take it away; an’ I 
wouldn’t untie the dog, because if I had he’d ’a’ torn 
the tendons out of that fellow’s legs in no time. I 
never see a dog in such a boiling passion, an’ yet 
never making no sound at all but blood-curdlin’ 
grunts. An’ I don’t see how the rodder would ’a’ got 
his ladder at all if the dog hadn’t made an awful jump 
at him, an’ jerked the ladder down. It just missed 
your geranium-bed, an’ the rodder he ran to the 
other end of it, an’ began pullin’ it away, dog an’ all. 
‘Look-a-here,’ says I, ‘we can fix him now.’ An’ so he 
cooled down enough to help me, an’ I unlocked the 
front door, an’ we pushed the bottom end of the 
ladder in, dog an’ all ; an’ then I shut the door as 
tight as it would go, an’ untied the end of the rope, 
an’ the rodder pulled the ladder out while I held the 
door to keep the dog from follerin’, which he came 
pretty near doin’, anyway. But I locked him in, an’ 
then the man began stormin’ again about his wagon ; 
but when he looked out an’ see the boy cornin’ back 
with it,— for somebody must ’a’ stopped the horse,— 
he stopped stormin’ an’ went to put up his ladder 
ag’in. ‘No, you don’t,’ says I. ‘I’ll let the big dog 
loose next time, an’ if I put him at the foot of your 
ladder you’ll never come down.’ ‘But I want to go 
an’ take down what I put up,’ he says ; ‘I ain’t a-goin’ 
on with this job.’ ‘No,’ says I, ‘you ain’t; an’ you 
can’t go up there to wrench off them rods an’ make 
rain-holes in the roof, neither.’ He couldn’t get no 
madder than he was then, an’ fur a minute or two he 
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couldn’t speak ; an’ then he says, ‘I’ll have satisfaction 
for this.’ An’ says I, ‘How?’ An’ says he, ‘You’ll 
see what it is to interfere with a ordered job.’ An’ 
says I, ‘There wasn’t no order about it.’ An’ says he, 
‘ I’ll show you better than that $ ’ an’ he goes to his 
wagon an’ gits a book. ‘There,’ says he, ‘read that.’ 
‘What of it?’ says I. ‘There’s nobody of the name 
of Ball lives here.’ That took the man kinder aback, 
an’ he said he was told it was the only house on the 
lane ; which I said was right, only it was the next 
lane he oughter ’a’ gone to. He said no more after 
that, but just put his ladder in his wagon an’ went 
off. But I was not altogether rid of him. He left a 
trail of his baleful presence behind him. 

“That horrid bull-dog wouldn’t let me come into 
the house ! No matter what door I tried, there he 
was, just foamin’ mad. I let him stay till nearly night, 
an’ then went an’ spoke kind to him ; but it was no 
good. He’d got an awful spite ag’in’ me. I found 
something to eat down cellar, an’ I made a fire out- 
side an’ roasted some corn an’ potatoes. That night 
I slep’ in the barn. I wasn’t afraid to be away from 
the house, for I knew it was safe enough with that 
dog in it an’ Lord Edward outside. For three days, 
Sunday an’ all, I was kep’ out of this here house. I 
got along pretty well with the sleepin’ an’ the eatin’, 
but the drinkin’ was the worst. I couldn’t get no 
coffee or tea ; but there was plenty of milk.” 

“Why didn’t you get some man to come and attend 
to the dog?” I asked. “It was dreadful to live that 
way.” 

“Well, I didn’t know no man that could do it,” said 
Pomona. “The dog would ’a’ been too much for Old 
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John, an’ besides, be was mad about the kerosene. 
Sunday afternoon Captain Atkinson an’ Mrs. Atkin- 
son an’ their little girl in a push- wagon come here, 
an’ I told ’em you was gone away ; but they says they 
would stop a minute, an’ could I give them a drink. 
An’ I had nothin’ to give it to them but an old chicken- 
bowl that I had washed out, for even the dipper was 
in the house ; an’ I told ’em everything was locked up, 
which was true enough, though they must ’a’ thought 
you was a queer kind of people ; but I wasn’t a-goin’ 
to say nothin’ about the dog, fur, to tell the truth, I 
was ashamed to do it. So as soon as they’d gone, I 
went down into the cellar,— it’s lucky that I had 
the key for the ouside cellar door,— an’ I got a piece 
of fat corn-beef an’ the meat-axe. I unlocked the 
kitchen door an’ went in, with the axe in one hand 
an’ the meat in the other. The dog might take his 
choice. I knowed he must be pretty nigh famished, 
for there was nothin’ that he could get at to eat. As 
soon as I went in, he came runnin’ to me, but I could 
see he was shaky on his legs. He looked a-sort of 
wicked at me, an’ then he grabbed the meat. He 
was all right then.” 

“Oh, my ! ” said Euphemia, “I am so glad to hear 
that. I was afraid you never got in. But we saw 
the dog— is he as savage yet?” 

“Oh, no !” said Pomona, “nothin’ like it.” 

“Look here, Pomona,” said I, “I want to know 
about those taxes. When do they come into your 
story?” 

“Pretty soon, sir,” said she, and she went on : 

“After that I knowed it wouldn’t do to have them 
two dogs so that they’d have to be tied up if they see 
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each other. Just as like as not I’d want them both at 
once, an’ then they’d go to fightin’, an’ leave me to 
settle with some bloodthirsty lightnin’ -rodder. So, 
as I knowed if they once had a fair fight an’ found 
out which was master they’d be good friends after- 
ward, I thought the best thing to do would be to let 
’em fight it out, when there was nothin’ else for ’em 
to do. So I fixed up things for the combat.” 

“Why, Pomona ! ” cried Euphemia, “I didn’t think 
you were capable of such a cruel thing.” 

“It looks that way, ma’am, but really it ain’t,” re- 
plied the girl. “It seemed to me as if it would be a 
mercy to both of ’em to have the thing settled. So I 
cleared away a place in front of the woodshed, an’ 
unchained Lord Edward, an’ then I opened the kitch- 
en door an’ called the bull. Out he came, with his 
teeth a-showin’, an’ his bloodshot eyes, an’ his 
crooked front legs. Like lightnin’ from the mount’in 
blast, he made one bounce for the big dog, an’ oh ! 
what a fight there was ! They rolled, they gnashed, 
they knocked over the wood-horse an’ sent chips a- 
flyin’ all ways at wonst. I thought Lord Edward 
would whip in a minute or two, but he didn’t, for 
the bull stuck to him like a burr $ they was havin’ 
it, ground an’ lofty, when I hears some one run up 
behind me, an’ turnin’ quick, there was the ’Piscopa- 
lian minister. ‘My ! my ! my ! ’ he hollers. ‘What a 
awful spectacle ! Ain’t there no way of stoppin’ it?’ 
‘No, sir,’ says I ; an’ I told him how I didn’t want to 
stop it, an’ the reason why. Then says he, ‘Where’s 
your master?’ An’ I told him how you was away. 
‘Isn’t there any man at all about?’ says he. ‘No,’ 
says I. ‘Then,’ says he, ‘if there’s nobody else to stop 
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it, I must do it myself/ An’ he took off his coat. 
‘No/ says I, ‘you keep back, sir. If there’s anybody 
to plunge into that erena, the blood be mine ; ’ an’ I 
put my hand, without thinkin’, ag’in’ his black shirt- 
bosom, to hold him back ; but he didn’t notice, bein’ 
so excited. ‘Now,’ says I, ‘jist wait one minute, and 
you’ll see that bull’s tail go between his legs. He’s 
weakenin’.’ An’ sure enough, Lord Edward got a 
good grab at him, an’ was a-shakin’ the very life out 
of him, when I run up an’ took Lord Edward by the 
collar. ‘ Drop it ! ’ says I, an’ he dropped it, for he 
knowed he’d whipped, an’ he was pretty tired hisself. 
Then the bull-dog he trotted off with his tail a-hangin’ 
down. ‘Now, then,’ says I, ‘them dogs will be bosom 
friends forever after this.’ ‘ Ah, me ! ’ says he, ‘ I’m 
sorry indeed that your employer, for who I’ve always 
had a great respect, should allow you to get into such 
habits.’ That made me feel real bad, an’ I told him, 
mighty quick, that you was the last man in the world 
to let me do anything like that, an’ that, if you’d ’a’ 
been here, you’d ’a’ separated them dogs, if they’d 
a-chawed your arms off ; that you was very particular 
about such things ; an’ that it would be a pity if he 
was to think you was a dog-fightin’ gentleman, when 
I’d often heard you say that, now you was fixed an’ 
settled, the one thing you would like most would be 
to be made a vestryman.” 

I sat up straight in my chair. 

“Pomona ! ” I exclaimed, “you didn’t tell him 
that?” 

“That’s what I said, sir, for I wanted him to know 
what you really was ; an’ he says, ‘Well, well, I never 
knew that. It might be a very good thing. I’ll speak 
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to some of the members about it. There’s two vacan- 
cies now in our vestry.” 

I was crushed ; but Euphemia tried to put the 
matter into the brightest light. 

“Perhaps it may all turn out for the best/’ she said, 
“and you may be elected, and that would be splendid. 
But it would be an awfully funny thing for a dog-fight 
to make you a vestryman.” 

I could not talk on this subject. “Go on, Pomona,” 
I said, trying to feel resigned to my shame, “and tell 
us about that poster on the fence.” 

“I’ll be to that almost right away,” she said. “It 
was two or three days after the dog-fight that I was 
down at the her , an’ happenin’ to look over to Old 
' tree-man there. He was a-showin’ 

an’ him an’ his wife an’ all the 
„ as a-standin’ there, drinkin’ down them 
^xg peaches an’ pears as if they was all real. I 
knowed he’d come here ag’in, for them fellers never 
gives you up ; an’ I didn’t know how to keep him 
away, for I didn’t want to let the dogs loose on a man 
what, after all, didn’t want to do no more harm than 
to talk the life out of you. So I just happened to 
notice, as I came to the house, how kind of desolate 
everything looked, an’ I thought perhaps I might 
make it look worse, an’ he wouldn’t care to deal here. 
So I thought of puttin’ up a poster like that, for no- 
body whose place was a-goin’ to be sold for taxes would 
be likely to want trees. So I run in the house, an’ 
wrote it quick, an’ put it up. An’ sure enough, the 
man he come along soon, an’ when he looked at that 
paper, an’ tried the gate, an’ looked over the fence 
an’ saw the house all shut up an’ not a livin’ soul 
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about,— for I bad both the dogs in the house with me, 
—he shook his head an’ walked off, as much as to say, 
‘If that man had fixed his place up proper with my 
trees, he wouldn’t ’a’ come to this ! ’ An’ then, as I 
found the poster worked so good, I thought it might 
keep other people from cornin’ a-botherin’ around, 
an’ so I left it up 5 but I was a-goin’ to be sure an’ 
take it down before you came.” 

As it was now pretty late in the afternoon, I pro- 
posed that Pomona should postpone the rest of her 
narrative until evening. She said that there was 
nothing else to tell that was very particular, and I 
did not feel as if I could stand anything more just 
now, even if it were very particular. 

When we were alone, I .said to Euphemia : 

“If we ever have to go away from this place again—” 
“But we won’t go away,” she interrupted, looking 
up to me with as bright a face as she ever had, “at 
least, not for a long, long, long time to come. And 
I’m so glad you’re to be a vestryman.” 


163 


CHAPTER XIV 


POMONA TAKES A BRIDAL TRIP 

Our life at Rudder Grange seemed to be in no way 
materially changed by my becoming a vestryman. 
The cow gave about as much milk as before, and the 
hens laid the usual number of eggs. Euphemia went 
to church with a little more of an air, perhaps ; but as 
the wardens were never absent, and I was never, 
therefore, called upon to assist in taking up the col- 
lection, her sense of my position was not inordinately 
manifested. 

For a year or two, indeed, there was no radical 
change in anything about Rudder Grange, except in 
Pomona. In her there was a change. She grew up. 

She performed this feat quite suddenly. She was a 
young girl when she first came to us, and we had never 
considered her as anything else, when one evening 
a young man came to see her. Then we knew she had 
grown up. 

We made no objections to her visitors,— she had 
several, from time to time,— “For,” said Euphemia, 
“suppose my parents had objected to your visits.” I 
could not consider the mere possibility of anything 
like this, and we gave Pomona all the ordinary oppor- 
tunities for entertaining her visitors. To tell the 
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truth, I think we gave her more than the ordinary 
opportunities. I know that Euphemia would wait on 
herself to almost any extent, rather than call upon 
Pomona when the latter was entertaining an evening 
visitor in the kitchen or on the hack porch. 

“Suppose my mother,” she once remarked, in answer 
to a mild remonstrance from me in regard to a cir- 
cumstance of this nature,— “suppose my mother had 
rushed into our presence when we were plighting our 
vows, and had told me to go down into the cellar and 
crack ice ! ” 

It was of no use to talk to Euphemia on such sub- 
jects ; she always had an answer ready. 

“You don’t want Pomona to go off and be married, 
do you? ” I asked, one day, as she was putting up some 
new muslin curtains in the kitchen. “You seem to 
be helping her to do this all you can, and yet I don’t 
know where on earth you will get another girl who 
will suit you so well.” 

“I don’t know, either,” replied Euphemia, with a 
tack in her mouth, “ and I’m sure I don’t want her to 
go. But neither do I want winter to come, or to have 
to wear spectacles ; but I suppose both of these things 
will happen, whether I like it or not.” 

For some time after this Pomona had very little 
company, and we began to think that there was no 
danger of any present matrimonial engagement on 
her part,— a thought which was very gratifying to us, 
although we did not wish in any way to interfere 
with her prospects,— when, one afternoon, she quietly 
went to the village and was married. 

Her husband was a tall young fellow, the son of a 
farmer in the county, who had occasionally been to 
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see her, but whom she must have frequently met on 
her “afternoons out.” 

When Pomona came home and told us this news we 
were certainly well surprised. 

“What on earth are we to do for a girl?” cried 
Euphemia. 

“You’re to have me till you can get another one,” 
said Pomona, quietly. “I hope you don’t think I’d go 
’way anJ leave you without anybody.” 

“But a wife ought to go to her husband,” said Eu- 
phemia, “especially so recent a bride. Why didn’t 
you let me know all about it? I would have helped 
to fit you out. We would have given you the nicest 
kind of a little wedding.” 

“I know that,” said Pomona, “you’re jus’ good 
enough. But I didn’t want to put you to all that 
trouble— right in preserving- time, too. An’ he wanted 
it quiet, for he’s awful backward about shows. An’ 
as I’m to go to live with his folks,— at least, in a little 
house on the farm,— I might as well stay here as any- 
where, even if I didn’t want to, for I can’t go there 
till after frost.” 

“Why not?” I asked. 

“The chills and fever,” said she. “They have it 
awful down in that valley. Why, he had a chill while 
we was bein’ married, right at the bridal altar.” 

“You don’t say so ! ” exclaimed Euphemia. “How 
dreadful ! ” 

“Yes, indeed,” said Pomona. “He must ’a’ forgot 
it was his chill-day, an’ he didn’t take his quinine, 
an’ so it come on him jus’ as he was a-promisin’ to 
love an’ pertect. But he stuck it out at the minister’s 
house, an’ walked home by hisself to finish his chill.” 

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“And you didn’t go with him?” cried Euphemia, 
indignantly. 

“He said no. It was better thus. He felt it weren’t 
the right thing to mingle the agur with his marriage 
vows. He promised to take sixteen grains to-morrow, 
an’ so I came away. He’ll be all right in a month or 
so, an’ then we’ll go an’ keep house. You see, it ain’t 
likely I could help him any by goin’ there an’ gettin’ 
it myself.” 

“Pomona,” said Euphemia, “this is dreadful. You 
ought to go and take a bridal tour and get him rid of 
those fearful chills.” 

“I never thought of that,” said Pomona, her face 
lighting up wonderfully. 

How that Euphemia had fallen upon this happy 
idea, she never dropped it until she had made all the 
necessary plans and had put them into execution. In 
the course of a week she had engaged another servant, 
and had started Pomona and her husband off on a 
bridal tour, stipulating nothing but that they should 
take plenty of quinine in their trunk. 

It was about three weeks after this, and Euphemia 
and I were sitting on our front steps,— I had come 
home early, and we had been potting some of the 
tender est plants,— when Pomona walked in at the 
gate. She looked well, and had on a very bright new 
dress. Euphemia noticed this the moment she came 
in. We welcomed her warmly, for we felt a great 
interest in this girl, who had grown up in our family 
and under our care. 

“Have you had your bridal trip ? ” asked Euphemia. 

“Oh, yes!” said Pomona. “It’s all over an’ done 
with, an’ we’re settled in our house.” 

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“Well, sit right down here on the steps and tell us 
all about it,” said Euphemia, in a glow of delightful 
expectancy $ and Pomona, nothing loath, sat down and 
told her tale. 

“You see,” said she, untying her bonnet strings to 
give an easier movement to her chin, “we didn’t say 
where we was goin’ when we started out, for the truth 
was, we didn’t know. We couldn’t afford to take no 
big trip, an’ yet we wanted to do the thing up jus’ as 
right as we could, seein’ as you had set your heart on 
it, an’ as we had, too, for that matter. Magery Fall 
was what I wanted, but he said that it cost so much 
to see the sights there that he hadn’t money to spare 
to take us there an’ pay for all the sight-seein’, too. 
We might go, he said, without seein’ the sights, or, if 
there was any way of seein’ the sights without goin’, 
that might do ; but he couldn’t do both. So we give 
that up, an’ after thinkin’ a good deal, we agreed to 
go to some other falls, which might come cheaper, an’ 
maybe be jus’ as good to begin on. So we thought of 
Passaic Falls, up to Paterson $ an’ we went there, an’ 
took a room at a little hotel, an’ walked over to the 
falls. But they wasn’t no good, after all, for there 
wasn’t no water runnin’ over ’em. There was rocks, 
an’ precipicers, an’ direful depths, an’ everything 
for a good falls, except water, an’ that was all bein’ 
used at the mills. 4 Well, Miguel,’ says I, ‘this is 
about as nice a place for a falls as ever I see, but—’ ” 

“Miguel ! ” cried Euphemia. “Is that your hus- 
band’s name ? ” 

“Well, no,” said Pomona, “it isn’t. His given name 
is Jonas ; but I hated to call him Jonas, an’ on a bridal 
trip, too. He might jus’ as well have had a more 
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romantic- er name, if his parents had ’a’ thought of 
it. So I determined I’d give him a better one while 
we was on our journey, anyhow, an’ I changed his 
name to Miguel, which was the name of a Spanish 
count. He wanted me to call him Jiguel, because, he 
said, that would have a kind of a floatin’ smell of his 
old name ; but I didn’t never do it. Well, neither of 
us didn’t care to stay about no dry falls, so we went 
back to the hotel an’ got our supper, an’ begun to 
wonder what we should do next day. He said we’d 
better put it off an’ dream about it, an’ make up 
our minds nex’ mornin’, which I agreed to ; an’ that 
evenin’, as we was sittin’ in our room, I asked Miguel 
to tell me the story of his life. He said, at first, it 
hadn’t none ; but when I seemed a-kinder put out at 
this, he told me I mustn’t mind, an’ he would reveal 
the whole. So he told me this story : 

“‘My grandfather,’ said he, ‘was a rich and powerful 
Portugee, a-livin’ on the island of Jamaica. He had 
heaps o’ slaves, an’ owned a black brigantine, that he 
sailed in on secret voyages, an’ when he come back 
the decks an’ the gunnels was often bloody, but nobody 
knew why or wherefore. He was a big man with 
black hair an’ very violent. He could never have 
kept no help if he hadn’t owned ’em, but he was so 
rich that people respected him, in spite of all his 
crimes. My grandmother was a native o’ the Isle o’ 
Wight. She was a frail an’ tender woman, with yeller 
hair an’ deep blue eyes, an’ gentle, an’ soft, an’ good 
to the poor. She used to take baskits of vittles aroun’ 
to sick folks, an’ set down on the side o’ their beds an’ 
read “The Shepherd o’ Salisbury Plains ” to ’em. She 
hardly ever speaked above her breath, an’ always 
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wore white gowns with a silk kerchief a-folded placidly 
aroun 7 her neck. 7 ‘Them was awful different kind o 7 
people/ I says to him. ‘I wonder how they ever come 
to be married. 7 ‘They never was married/ says he. 
‘Never married! 7 I hollers, a-jumpin 7 up from my 
chair, ‘an 7 you sit there carmly an 7 look me in the 
eye. 7 ‘Yes/ says he, ‘they was never married. They 
never met $ one was my mother’s father, an 7 the other 
one my fathers mother. 7 Twas well they did not wed. 7 
‘I should think so/ said I ; ‘an 7 now, what 7 s the good of 
tellin 7 me a thing like that % 7 

‘“It 7 s about as near the mark as most of the stories 
of peopled lives, I reckon/ says he; ‘an 7 besides, I 7 d 
only jus 7 begun it. 7 * 

“‘Well, I don’t want no more/ says I ; an 7 1 jus 7 tell 
this story of his to show what kind of stories he told 
about that time. He said they was pleasant fictions, 
but I told him that if he didn’t look out he’d hear ’em 
called by a good deal of a worse kind of a name than 
that. The nex 7 mornin 7 he asked me what was my 
dream, an 7 I told him I didn’t have exactly no dream 
about it, but my idea was to have somethin’ real ro- 
mantic for the rest of our bridal days. 

“‘Well/ says he, ‘what would you like? I had a 
dream, but it wasn’t noways romantic, an 7 I’ll jus 7 
fall in with whatever you’d like best. 7 

“‘All right, 7 says I ; ‘an 7 the most romantic-est thing 
that I can think of is for us to make believe for 
the rest of this trip. We can make believe we’re 
anything we please, an 7 if we think so in real earnest 
it will be pretty much the same thing as if we really 
was. We ain’t likely to have no chance ag’in of being 
jus 7 what we’ve a mind to, an 7 so let’s try it now. 7 

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“‘ What would you have a mind to be? ’ says he. 

‘“Well/ says I, ‘let’s be an earl an’ a earl-ess.’ 

“ ‘ Earl-ess ? ’ says he. ‘ There’s no such a person.’ 

“‘Why, yes, there is, of course,’ I says to him. 
‘What’s a she-earl, if she isn’t a earl-ess?’ 

“‘Well, I don’t know,’ says he, ‘never havin’ lived 
with any of ’em. But we’ll let it go at that. An’ how 
do you want to work the thing out? ’ 

“‘This way,’ says L ‘You, Miguel—’ 

“‘ Jiguel,’ says he. 

“‘The earl,’ says I, not mindin’ his interruption, 
‘an’ me, your noble earl-ess, will go to some good 
place or other,— it don’t matter much jus’ where,— an’ 
whatever house we live in we’ll call our castle, an’ 
we’ll consider it’s got drawbridges an’ portcullises 
an’ moats an’ secrit dungeons, an’ we’ll remember our 
noble ancesters, an’ behave accordin’. An’ the people 
we meet we can make into counts an’ dukes an’ 
princes, without their knowin’ anything about it ; an’ 
we can think our clothes is silk an’ satin an’ velvet, 
all covered with dimuns an’ precious stones, jus’ as 
well as not.’ 

“‘Jus’ as well,’ says he. 

“‘An’ then,’ I went on, ‘we can go an’ have chi -val- 
rous adventures,— or make believe we’re havin’ ’em, 
—an’ build up a atmosphere of romanticness aroun’ us 
that’ll carry us back—’ 

“‘To ole Yirginny,’ says he. 

“‘ISTo,’ says I, ‘for thousands of years, or at least 
enough back for the times of tournaments and chi- 
mZ-ry.’ 

“‘An’ so your idea is that we make believe all these 
things, an’ don’t pay for none of ’em, is it?’ says he. 

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“‘Yes ,’ says 1 ; ‘an’ you, Miguel—’ 

“‘ Jiguel,’ says he. 

“‘Can ask me, if you don’t know, what chi-t>a7-ric or 
romantic thing you ought to do or to say so as to feel 
yourself truly an’ reely a earl, for I’ve read a lot about 
these people, an’ know jus’ what ought to be did.’ 

“Well, he set himself down an’ thought awhile, an’ 
then he says : ‘All right ; we’ll do that ; an’ we’ll begin 
to-morrow mornin’, for I’ve got a little business to do 
in the city which wouldn’t be exactly the right thing 
for me to stoop to after I’m a earl, so I’ll go in an’ do 
it while I’m a common person, an’ come back this 
afternoon ; an’ you can walk about an’ look at the dry 
falls, an’ amuse yourself gen’rally, till I come back.’ 

“‘All right,’ says I, an’ off he goes. 

“He come back afore dark, an’ the nex’ mornin’ we 
got ready to start off. 

“‘Have you any particular place to go?’ says he. 

“‘Ho,’ says I ; ‘one place is as likely to be as good as 
another for our style o’ thing. If it don’t suit, we can 
imagine it does.’ 

“‘That’ll do,’ says he, an’ we had our trunk sent to 
the station, an’ walked ourselves. When we got 
there, he says to me : 

“‘Which number will you have, five or seven?’ 

“‘Either one will suit me, Earl Miguel,’ says I. 

“‘Jiguel,’ says he, ‘an’ we’ll make it seven. An’ 
now I’ll go an’ look at the time-table, an’ we’ll buy 
tickets for the seventh station from here. The seventh 
station,’ says he, cornin’ back, ‘is Pokus. We’ll go to 
Pokus.’ 

“So when the train come we got in, an’ got out at 
Pokus. It was a pretty sort of a place, out in the 
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country, with the houses scattered a long ways apart, 
like stingy chicken-feed. 

“‘ Let’s walk down this road/ says he, ‘till we come 
to a good house for a castle, an’ then we can ask ’em 
to take us to board, an’ if they won’t do it we’ll go to 
the next, an’ so on.’ 

“‘All right,’ says I, glad enough to see how pat he 
entered into the thing. 

“We walked a good ways, an’ passed some little 
houses that neither of us thought would do without 
more imaginin’ than would pay, till we came to a 
pretty big house near the river, which struck our 
fancy in a minute. It was a stone house, an’ it had 
trees aroun’ it ; there was a garden with a wall, an’ 
things seemed to suit first-rate, so we made up our 
minds right off that we’d try this place. 

“‘You wait here under this tree,’ says he, ‘an’ I’ll 
go an’ ask ’em if they’ll take us to board for a while.’ 

“So I waits, an’ he goes up to the gate, an’ pretty 
soon he comes out an’ says, ‘All right, they’ll take us, 
an’ they’ll send a man with a wheelbarrer to the 
station for our trunk.’ So in we goes. The man was 
a country-like lookin’ man, an’ his wife was a very 
pleasant woman. The house wasn’t furnished very 
fine, but we didn’t care for that, an’ they gave us a 
big room that had rafters instid of a ceilin’, an’ a big 
fireplace, an’ that, I said, was jus’ exac’ly what we 
wanted. The room was almos’ like a donjon itself, 
which he said he reckoned had once been a kitchin $ 
but I told him that a earl hadn’t nothin’ to do with 
kitchins, an’ that this was a tapestry chamber, an’ I’d 
tell him all about the strange figgers on the embroi- 
dered hangin’s when the shadders begun to fall. 

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“It rained a little that afternoon, an’ we stayed in 
our room, an’ hung our clothes an’ things about on 
nails an’ hooks, an’ made believe they was armor an’ 
ancient trophies an’ portraits of a long line of ances- 
ters. I did most of the make believin’ j but he agreed 
to ev’rything. The man who kep’ the house’s wife 
brought us our supper about dark, because she said 
she thought we might like to have it together cosey, 
an’ so we did, an’ was glad enough of it; an’ after 
supper we sat before the fireplace, where we made 
believe the flames was a-roarin’ an’ cracklin’ an’ 
a-lightin’ up the bright places on the armor a-hangin’ 
aroun’, while the storm— which we made believe— was 
a-ragin’ an’ whirlin’ outside. I told him a long story 
about a lord an’ a lady, which was two or three stories I 
had read run together, an’ we had a splendid time. 
It all seemed real real to me.” 


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I am staying here on business connected with the 
United States Bank. This is my brother/ says she, 
pointin’ to the big man. 

“‘How d’ye do?’ says he, a-puttin’ his hands to- 
gether, turnin’ his toes out, an’ makin’ a funny little 
bow. ‘ 1 am General Tom Thumb,’ he says in a deep, 
gruff voice, ‘an’ I’ve been before all the crown-ed 
heads of Europe, Asia, Africa, America, an’ Australia, 
— all a’s but one, — an’ I’m waitin’ here for a team of 
four little milk-white oxen, no bigger than tall cats, 
which is to be hitched to a little hay-wagon, which I 
am to ride in, with a little pitchfork an’ real farmer’s 
clothes, only small. This will come to-morrow, when 
I will pay for it an’ ride away to exhibit. It may be 
here now, an’ I will go an’ see. Good-by.’ 

“‘Good-by, likewise,’ says the lady. ‘I hope you’ll 
have all you’re thinkin’ you’re havin’, an’ more too, 
but less if you’d like it. Farewell.’ An’ away they 
goes. 

“Well, you may be sure I stood there amazed 
enough, an’ mad, too, when I heard her talk about my 
bein’ all I was a-thinkin’ I was. I was sure my hus- 
band— scare e two weeks old a husband— had told all. 
It was too bad. I wished I had jus’ said I was the 
Earl-ess of Random an’ brassed it out. 

“I rushed back, an’ foun’ him smokin’ a pipe on a 
back porch. I charged him with his perfidy, but he 
vowed so earnest that he had not told these people of 
our fancies, or ever had spoke to ’em, that I had to 
believe him. 

‘“I expec’,’ says he, ‘that they’re jus’ makin’ believe 
—as we are. There ain’t no patent on make-believes.’ 

“This didn’t satisfy me, an’ as he seemed to be so 
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careless about it, I walked away an’ left him to his 
pipe. I determined to go take a walk along some of 
the country roads an’ think this thing over for myself. 
I went aroun’ to the front gate, where the woman of 
the house was a-standin’ talkin’ to somebody, an’ I 
jus’ bowed to her, for I didn’t feel like sayin’ anything, 
an’ walked past her. 

“‘ Hello ! ’ said she, jumpin’ in front of me an’ shuttin’ 
the gate. ‘ You can’t go out here. If you want to 
walk you can walk about in the grounds. There’s 
lots of shady paths.’ 

“‘ Can’t go out ! ’ says I. ‘ Can’t go out ! What do 
you mean by that? ’ 

“‘I mean jus’ what I say,’ said she, an’ she locked 
the gate. 

“I was so mad that I could have pushed her over 
an’ broke the gate ; but I thought that if there was 
anything of that kind to do I had a husband whose 
business it was to attend to it, an’ so I runs aroun’ to 
him to tell him. He had gone in, but I met Mrs. 
Jackson an’ her brother. 

What’s the matter? ’ said she, seein’ what a hurry 
I was in. 

“‘That woman at the gate,’ I said, almost chokin’ 
as I spoke, ‘won’t let me out.’ 

“‘She won’t?’ said Mrs. Jackson. ‘Well, that’s a 
way she has. Four times the Bank of the United 
States has closed its doors before I was able to get 
there, on account of that woman’s obstinacy about the 
gate. Indeed, I have not been to the bank at all yet, 
for of course it is of no use to go after banking 
hours.’ 

“‘An’ I believe, too,’ said her brother, in his heavy 
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voice, ‘ that she has kept out my team of little oxen. 
Otherwise it would be here now.’ 

“I couldn’t stand any more of this, an’ ran into our 
room, where my husband was. When I told him what 
had happened, he was real sorry. 

“‘I didn’t know you thought of going out,’ he said, 
‘or I would have told you all about it. An’ now, sit 
down an’ quiet yourself, an’ I’ll tell you jus’ how 
things is.’ So down we sits, an’ says he, jus’ as carm 
as a summer cloud, ‘ My dear, this is a lunertic asylum. 
Now, don’t jump,’ he says ; ‘I didn’t bring you here 
because I thought you was crazy, but because I 
wanted you to see what kind of people they was who 
imagined themselves earls and earl-esses, an’ all that 
sort o’ thing, an’ to have an idea how the thing worked 
after you’d been doing it a good while an’ had got 
used to it. I thought it would be a good thing, while 
I was Earl Jiguel and you was a noble earl-ess, to come 
to a place where people acted that way. I knowed 
you had read lots o’ books about knights and princes 
an’ bloody towers, an’ that you knowed all about them 
things, but I didn’t suppose you did know how them 
same things looked in these days, an’ a lunertic asylum 
was the only place where you could see ’em. So I 
went to a doctor I knowed,’ he says, ‘an’ got a certifi- 
cate from him to this private institution, where we 
could stay for a while an’ get posted on romantics.’ 

“‘Then,’ says I, ‘the upshot was that you wanted to 
teach a lesson.’ 

“‘Jus’ that,’ says he. 

“‘All right,’ says I, ‘it’s teached. An’ now let’s get 
out of this as quick as we kin.’ 

“‘That’ll suit me,’ he says, ‘an’ we’ll leave by the 
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noon train. I’ll go an’ see about the trunk bein’ sent 
down.’ 

“So off he went to see the man who kept the house, 
while I falls to packin’ up the trunk as fast as I could.” 

“Weren’t you dreadfully angry at him? ” asked Eu- 
phemia, who, having a romantic streak in her own 
composition, did not sympathize altogether with this 
heroic remedy for Pomona’s disease. 

“No, ma’am,” said Pomona, “not long. When I 
thought of Mrs. General Jackson an’ Tom Thumb, 
I couldn’t help thinkin’ that I must have looked 
pretty much the same to my husband, who, I knowed 
now, had only been makin’ believe to make believe. 
An’ besides, I couldn’t be angry very long, for laughin’, 
for when he come back in a minute, as mad as a March 
hare, an’ said they wouldn’t let me out, nor him 
nuther, I fell to laughin’ ready to crack my sides. 

“‘They say,’ said he, as soon as he could speak 
straight, ‘that we can’t go out without another cer- 
tificate from the doctor. I told ’em I’d go myself an’ 
see him about it ; but they said no, I couldn’t, for if 
they did that way everybody who ever was sent here 
would be goin’ out the next day to see about leavin’. 
I didn’t want to make no fuss, so I told them I’d write 
a letter to the doctor an’ tell him to send an order 
that would soon show them whether we could go out 
or not. They said that would be the best thing to do, 
an’ so I’m goin’ to write it this minute’— which he 
did. 

‘“How long will we have to wait? ’ says I, when the 
letter was done. 

“‘Well,’ says he, ‘the doctor can’t get this before 
to-morrow mornin’, an’ even if he answers right away, 
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we won’t get our order to go out until the next day. 
So we’ll jus’ have to grin an’ hear it for a day an’ a 
half.’ 

“‘This is a lively old bridal trip/ said I— ‘dry falls 
an’ a lunertic asylum.’ 

“‘We’ll try to make the rest of it better/ said he. 

“But the next day wasn’t no better. We stayed in 
our room all day, for we didn’t care to meet Mrs. 
Jackson an’ her crazy brother, an’ I’m sure we didn’t 
want to see the mean creatures who kept the house. 
We knew well enough that they only wanted us to stay 
so that they could get more board-money out of us.” 

“I should have broken out,” cried Euphemia. “I 
would never have stayed an hour in that place after I 
found out what it was, especially on a bridal trip.” 

“If we’d done that,” said Pomona, “they’d have 
got men after us, an’ then everybody would have 
thought we was real crazy. We made up our minds 
to wait for the doctor’s letter ; but it wasn’t much fun. 
An’ I didn’t tell no romantic stories to fill up the time. 
We sat down an’ behaved like the commonest kind o’ 
people. You never saw anybody sicker of romantics 
than I was when I thought of them two loons that 
called themselves Mrs. Andrew Jackson and General 
Tom Thumb. I dropped Miguel altogether, an’ he 
dropped Jiguel, which was a relief to me, an’ I took 
strong to Jonas, even callin’ him Jone, which I con- 
sider a good deal uglier an’ commoner even than Jonas. 
He didn’t like this much, but said that if it would help 
me out of the Miguel, he didn’t care. 

“Well, on the mornin’ of the next day I went into 
the little front room that they called the office, to see 
if there was a letter for us yet, an’ there wasn’t no- 
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body there to ask. But I saw a pile of letters under 
a weight on the table, an’ I jus’ looked at these to see 
if one of ’em was for us, an’ if there wasn’t the very 
letter Jone had written to the doctor ! They’d never 
sent it ! I rushed back to Jone an’ told him, an’ he 
jus’ set an’ looked at me without sayin’ a word. I 
didn’t wonder he couldn’t speak. 

“ ‘ I’ll go an’ let them people know what I think of 
’em,’ says I. 

Ul Don’t do that,’ said Jone, catchin’ me by the 
sleeve. ‘It won’t do no good. Leave the letter there, 
an’ don’t say nothin’ about it. We’ll stay here till 
afternoon quite quiet, an’ then we’ll go away. That 
garden wall isn’t high.’ 

“‘An’ how about the trunk?’ says I. 

‘“Oh, we’ll take a few things in our pockets, an’ 
lock up the trunk, an’ ask the doctor to send for it 
when we get to the city.’ 

“‘All right,’ says I. An’ we went to work to get 
ready to leave. 

“About five o’clock in the afternoon, when it was 
a nice time to take a walk under the trees, we mean- 
dered quietly down to a corner of the back wall where 
Jone thought it would be rather convenient to get 
over. He hunted up a short piece of board, which he 
leaned up ag’in’ the wall, an’ then he put his foot on 
the top of that an’ got hold of the top of the wall an’ 
climbed up, as easy as nothin’. Then he reached 
down to help me step onto the board. But jus’ as he 
was a-goin’ to take me by the hand, ‘Hello,’ says he, 
‘look-a- there ! ’ An’ I turned round an’ looked, an’ 
if there wasn’t Mrs. Andrew Jackson an’ General Tom 
Thumb a- walkin’ down the path. 

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“‘What shall we do ? 7 says I. 

“‘Come along/ says he. ‘We ain’t a-goin’ to stop 
for them. Get up, all the same.’ 

“I tried to get up as he said, but it wasn’t so easy 
for me on account of my not bein’ such a high-stepper 
as Jone, an’ I was a good while a-gettin’ a good footin’ 
on the board. 

“Mrs. Jackson an’ the General they came right up 
to us, an’ set down on a bench which was fastened be- 
tween two trees near the wall. An’ there they set, 
a-lookin’ steady at us with their four little eyes, like 
four empty thimbles. 

“‘You appear to be goin’ away,’ says Mrs. Jackson. 

“‘Yes,’ says Jone from the top of the wall. ‘We’re 
a-goin’ to take a slight stroll outside, this salu-brious 
evenin’.’ 

“‘Do you think,’ says she, ‘that the United States 
Bank would be open this time of day?’ 

“‘Oh, no,’ says Jone, ‘the banks all close at three 
o’clock. It’s a good deal after that now.’ 

“‘But if I told the officers who I was, wouldn’t that 
make a difference?’ says she. ‘Wouldn’t they go 
down an’ open the bank ? ’ 

“‘Not much,’ says Jone, givin’ a pull which brought 
me right up to the top o’ the wall an’ almost clean 
down the other side with one jerk. ‘I never knowed 
no officers that would do that. But,’ says he, a-kind 
o’ shuttin’ his eyes so that she shouldn’t see he was 
lyin’, ‘we’ll talk about that when we come back.’ 

“‘If you see that team of little oxen,’ says the big 
man, ‘send ’em round to the front gate.’ 

‘“All right,’ says Jone ; an’ he let me down the out- 
side of the wall as if I had been a bag o’ horse-feed. 

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“‘But if the bank isn’t open you can’t pay for it 
when it does come/ we heard the old lady a-sayin’, as 
we hurried off. 

“We didn’t lose no time a-goin’ down to that sta- 
tion, an’ it’s lucky we didn’t, for a train for the city 
was cornin’ jus’ as we got there, an’ we jumped aboard 
without havin’ no time to buy tickets. There wasn’t 
many people in our car, an’ we got a seat together. 

“‘Now, then,’ says Jone, as the cars went a-buzzin’ 
along, ‘I feel as if I was really on a bridal trip, which 
I mus’ say I didn’t at that there asylum.’ 

“An’ then I said, ‘I should think not,’ an’ we both 
bust out a-laughin’, as well we might, feelin’ sich a 
change of surroundin’s. 

‘“Do you think,’ says somebody behind us, when 
we’d got through laughin’, ‘that if I was to send a 
boy up to the cashier he would either come down or 
send me the key of the bank? ’ 

“We both turned aroun’ as quick as lightnin’, an’ 
if there wasn’t them two lunertics in the seat behind 
us ! 

“It nearly took our breaths away to see them set- 
tin’ there, staring at us with their thimble eyes, an’ 
a-wearin’ their little straw hats, both alike. 

“‘How on the livin’ earth did you two get here?’ 
says I, as soon as I could speak. 

*“‘Oh, we come by the same way you come— by the 
tem-per-ary stairs,’ says Mrs. Jackson. ‘We thought 
if it was too late to draw any money to-night, it might 
be well to be on hand bright an’ early in the mornin’. 
An’ so we follered you two as close as we could, be- 
cause we knew you could take us right to the very 
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bank doors, an’ we didn’t know the way ourselves, not 
never havin’ had no occasion to attend to nothin’ of 
this kind before.’ 

“Jone an’ I looked at each other, but we didn’t 
speak for a minute. 

“Then’ says I, ‘ Here’s a pretty kittle o’ fish.’ 

“‘I should kinder say so,’ says Jone. ‘ We’ve got 
these here two lunertics on onr hands, sure enough, 
for there ain’t no train back to Pokus to-night, an’ I 
wouldn’t go back with ’em if there was. We must 
keep an eye on ’em till we can see the doctor to- 
morrow.’ 

“‘I suppose we must,’ says I, ‘but this don’t seem as 
much like a bridal trip as it did awhile ago.’ 

“‘You’re right there,’ says Jone. 

“When the conductor came along we had to pay 
the fare of them two lunertics, besides our own, for 
neither of ’em had a cent about ’em. When we got 
to town we went to a smallish hotel near the ferry, 
where Jone knowed the man who kep’ it, who 
wouldn’t bother about none of us havin’ a scrap of 
baggage, knowin’ he’d get his money all the same, 
out of either Jone or his father. The General an’ his 
sister looked a-kind o’ funny in their little straw hats 
an’ green carpet-slippers, an’ the clerk didn’t know 
whether he hadn’t forgot how to read writin’ when 
the big man put down the names of General Tom 
Thumb and Mrs. ex-President Andrew Jackson, which 
he wasn’t ex-President anyway, bein’ dead ; but Jone 
he whispered they was travellin’ under nommys dess 
plummys,— I told him to say that, an’ he would fix it 
all right in the mornin’. An’ then we got some sup- 
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per,— which it took them two lunertics a long time to 
eat, for they was all the time forgettin’ what particular 
kind o’ business they was about,— an’ then we was 
showed to our rooms. They had two rooms right 
across the hall from ours. We hadn’t been inside our 
room five minutes before Mrs. General Jackson come 
a-knockin’ at the door. 

“‘Look-a-here,’ she says to me, ‘ there’s a unforeseen 
contingency in my room. An’ it smells.’ 

“So I went right in, an’ sure enough it did smell, 
for she had turned on all the gases, besides the one 
that was lighted. 

“‘ What did you do that for? ’ says I, a-turnin’ them 
off as fast as I could. 

“‘I’d like to know what they’re made for,’ says she, 
‘if they isn’t to be turned on.’ 

“When I told Jone about this he looked real serious, 
an’ jus’ then a waiter came up -stairs an’ went into the 
big man’s room. In a minute he come out an’ says to 
Jone an’ me, a-grinnin’ : 

“‘We can’t suit him no better in this house.’ 

“‘What does he want?’ asks Jone. 

“‘Why, he wants a smaller bed,’ says the waiter. 
‘He says he can’t sleep in a bed as big as that, an’ 
we haven’t none smaller in this house, which he 
couldn’t get into if we had, in my opinion,’ says he. 

‘“All right,’ says Jone. ‘Jus’ you go down-stairs, 
an’ I’ll fix him.’ So the man goes off, still a-grinnin’. 
‘I tell you what it is,’ says Jone, ‘it won’t do to let 
them two lunertics have rooms to themselves. They’ll 
set this house afire or turn it upside down in the 
middle of the night, if they has. There’s nothin’ to 
be done but for you to sleep with the woman an’ for 
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me to sleep with the man, to keep ’em from cuttin’ 
up till mornin’.’ 

“So Jone he went into the room where General Tom 
Thumb was a-settin’ with his hat on, a-lookin’ doleful 
at the bed, an’ says he : 

“ 4 What’s the matter with the bed?’ 

“‘Oh, it’s too large entirely,’ says the General. ‘It 
wouldn’t do for me to sleep in a bed like that. It 
would ruin my character as a genuine Thumb.’ 

“‘Well,’ says Jone, ‘it’s nearly two times too big 
for you, but if you an’ me was both to sleep in it, it 
would be about right, wouldn’t it? ’ 

“‘Oh yes,’ says the General. An’ he takes off his 
hat, an’ Jone says good night to me an’ shuts the door. 
Our room was better than Mrs. General Jackson’s, so 
I takes her in there, an’ the fust thing she does is to 
turn on all the gases. 

“‘Stop that ! ’ I hollers. ‘If you do that agin, I’ll 
—I’ll break the United States Bank to-morrow ! ’ 

“‘How’ll you do that?’ says she. 

“‘I’ll draw out all my capital,’ says I. 

“‘I hope really you won’t,’ says she, ‘till I’ve been 
there ; ’ an’ she leans out of the open winder to look 
into the street. But while she was a-lookin’ out I see 
her left hand a-creepin’ up to the gas by the winder, 
that wasn’t lighted. I felt mad enough to take her 
by the feet an’ pitch her out, as you an’ the boarder,” 
said Pomona, turning to me, “h’isted me out of the 
canal-boat winder.” 

This, by the way, was the first intimation we had 
had that Pomona knew how she came to fall out of 
that window. 

“But I didn’t do it,” she continued, “for there 
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wasn’t no soft water underneath for her to fall into. 
After we went to bed I kep’ awake for a long time, 
bein’ afraid she’d get up in the night an’ turn on all 
the gases an’ smother me alive. But I fell asleep at 
last, an’ when I woke up, early in the mornin’, the 
first thing I did was to feel for that lunertic. But she 
was gone ! ” 


188 


CHAPTER XVI 


IN WHICH AN OLD FRIEND APPEARS AND THE 
BRIDAL TRIP TAKES A FRESH START 

“Gone? ” cried Euphemia, who, with myself, had been 
listening most intently to Pomona’s story. 

“Yes,” continued Pomona, “she was gone. I give 
one jump out of bed an’ felt the gases, but they was 
all right. But she was gone, an’ her clothes was 
gone. I dressed, as pale as death, I do expect, an’ 
hurried to Jone’s room, an’ he an’ me an’ the big man 
was all ready in no time to go an’ look for her. Gen- 
eral Tom Thumb didn’t seem very anxious, but we 
made him hurry up an’ come along with us. We 
couldn’t afford to leave him nowheres. The clerk 
down-stairs— a different one from the chap who was 
there the night before— said that a middle-aged, 
elderly lady came down about an hour before an’ 
asked him to tell her the way to the United States 
Bank, an’ when he told her he didn’t know of any such 
bank, she jus’ stared at him, an’ wanted to know what 
he was put there for. So he didn’t have no more to 
say to her, an’ she went out, an’ he didn’t take no 
notice which way she went. We had the same opinion 
about him that Mrs. Jackson had, but we didn’t stop 
to tell him so. We hunted up an’ down the streets 
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for an hour or more ; we asked every policeman we 
met if he’d seen her $ we went to a police station ; we 
did everything we could think of, but no Mrs. Jackson 
turned up. Then we was so tired an’ hungry we 
went into some place or other an’ got our breakfast. 
When we started out ag’in, we kep’ on up one street 
an’ down another, askin’ everybody who looked as 
if they had two grains of sense — which most of ’em 
didn’t look as if they had mor’n one, an’ that was 
in use to get ’em to where they was goin’. At last, a 
little ways down a small street, we seed a crowd, an’ 
the minute we see it Jone an’ me both said in our 
inside hearts, 1 There she is ! ’ An’ sure enough, 
when we got there, who should we see, with a ring of 
street-loafers an’ boys around her, but Mrs. Andrew 
Jackson, with her little straw hat an’ her green car- 
pet-slippers, a-dancin’ some kind of a skippin’ fan- 
dango, an’ a-holdin’ out her skirts with the tips of her 
fingers. I was jus’ a-goin’ to rush in an’ grab her when 
a man walks quick into the ring an’ touches her on 
the shoulder. The minute I seed him I knowed him. 
It was our old boarder ! ” 

“It was?” exclaimed Euphemia. 

“Yes, it was truly him ; 1 didn’t want him to see 
me there in such company, an’ he most likely knowin’ 
I was on my bridal trip, so I made a dive at my 
bonnet to see if I had a veil on, an’ findin’ one, I 
hauled it down. 

“‘ Madam,’ says the boarder, very respectful, to 
Mrs. Jackson, 1 where do you live? Can’t I take you 
home ? ’ ‘No, sir,’ says she , 1 at least, not now. If you 
have a carriage, you may come for me after a while. 
I am waiting for the Bank of the United States to 
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open, an’ until which time I must support myself on 
the light fantastic toe 5 ’ an’ then she tuk up her skirts 
an’ begun to dance ag’in. But she didn’t make mor’n 
two skips before I rushed in, an’ takin’ her by the 
arm, hauled her out o’ the ring. An’ then up comes 
the big man, with his face as red as fire. ‘ Look here ! ’ 
says he to her, as if he was ready to eat her up. ‘Did 
you draw every cent of that money?’ ‘Not yet, not 
yet,’ says she. ‘You did, you purse-proud cantalope,’ 
says he. ‘You know very well you did. An’ now I’d 
like to know where my ox-money is to come from.’ 
But Jone an’ me didn’t intend to wait for no sich talk 
as this, so he tuk the man by the arm, an’ I tuk the 
old woman, an’ we jus’ walked ’em off. The boarder 
he told the loafers to get out an’ go home, an’ none 
of ’em follered us, for they knowed if they did he’d ’a’ 
batted ’em over the head. But he comes up alongside 
o’ me as I was a-walkin’ behind with Mrs. Jackson, 
an’ says he : ‘How d’ye do, Pomona?’ I must say I 
felt as if I could slip in between two flagstones j but as 
I couldn’t get away, I said I was pretty well. ‘I 
heared you was on your bridal trip,’ says he, ag’in ; ‘is 
this it?’ It was jus’ like him to know that, an’ as 
there was no help for it, I said it was. ‘Is that your 
husband?’ says he, pointin’ to Jone. ‘Yes,’ says I. 
‘It was very good in him to come along’, says he. ‘Is 
these two your groomsman and bridesmaid?’ ‘No, 
sir,’ says I. ‘They’re crazy.’ ‘No wonder,’ says he. 
‘It’s enough to drive ’em so, to see you two ; ’ an’ then 
he went ahead an’ shook hands with Jone, an’ told him 
he’d knowed me a long time ; but he didn’t say nothin’ 
about havin’ h’isted me out of a winder, for which 
I was obliged to him. Then he come back to me, 
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an’ says lie : ‘ Good mornin’ ; I must go to the office. I 
hope you’ll have a good time for the rest of your trip. 
If you happen to run short o’ lunertics, jus’ let me 
know, an’ I’ll furnish you with another pair.’ ‘All 
right,’ says I, ‘but you mustn’t bring your little girl 
along.’ 

“He kinder laughed at this as we walked away, an’ 
then he turned around an’ come back, an’ says he, 
‘Have you been to any the-ay-ters, or anything, since 
you’ve been in town ? ’ ‘Ho,’ says I, ‘ not one.’ ‘ W ell,’ 

says he, ‘you ought to go. Which do you like best, 
the the-ay-ter, the cir-cus, or wild beasts?’ I did 
really like the the-ay-ter best, havin’ thought of bein’ 
a play-actor, as you know, but I considered I’d better 
let that kind o’ thing slide jus’ now, as bein’ a little 
too romantic, right after the ’sylum, so I says, ‘I’ve 
been once to a circus, an’ once to a wild-beast garden, 
an’ I like ’em both. I hardly know which I like best 
—the roarin’ beasts, a-prancin’ about in their cages, 
with the smell of blood an’ hay, an’ the towerin’ ele- 
phants ; or the horses, an’ the music, an’ the gauzy 
figgers at the circus, an’ the splendid knights in armor 
an’ fiashin’ pennants, all on fiery steeds, a-plungin’ 
ag’in’ the sides of the ring, with their flags a-flyin’ in 
the grand entry,’ says I, real excited with what I re- 
membered about these shows. 

“‘Well,’ says he, ‘I don’t wonder at your feelin’s. 
An’ now, here’s two tickets for to-night, which you an’ 
your husband can have, if you like, for I can’t go. 
They’re to a meetin’ of the Hudson County Enter-mo- 
logical Society, over to Hoboken, at eight o’clock.’ 

“‘Over to Hoboken ! ’ says I. ‘That’s a long way.’ 

“‘Oh, no, it isn’t,’ says he. ‘An’ it won’t cost you a 
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cent but the ferry. They couldn’t have them shows 
in the city, for if the creatures was to get loose 
there’s no knowin’ what might happen. So take ’em, 
an’ have as much fun as you can for the rest of your 
trip. Good-by ! ’ An’ off he went. 

“Well, we kep’ straight on to the doctor’s, an’ glad 
we was when we got there, an’ mad he was when we 
leff Mrs. Jackson an’ the General on his hands, for we 
wouldn’t have no more to do with ’em, an’ he couldn’t 
help undertakin’ to see that they got back to the 
asylum. I thought at first he wouldn’t lift a finger to 
get us our trunk ; but he cooled down after a bit, an’ 
said he hoped we’d try some different kind of institu- 
tion for the rest of our trip, which we said we thought 
we would. 

“That afternoon we gawked around, a-lookin’ at all 
the outside shows, for Jone said he’d have to be pretty 
careful of his money now, an’ he was glad when I told 
him I had two free tickets in my pocket for a show in 
the evenin’. 

“As we was a- walkin’ down to the ferry, after 
supper, says he : 

“‘ Suppose you let me have a look at them tickets.’ 

“So I hands ’em to him. He reads one of ’em, an’ 
then he reads the other, which he needn’t ’a’ done, for 
they was both alike, an’ then he turns to me an’ 
says he : 

“‘What kind of a man is your boarder-as- was ? ’ 

“It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to say jus’ 
what he was, but I give Jone the idea, in a general 
sort of way, that he was pretty lively. 

“‘So I should think,’ says he. ‘He’s been tryin’ a 
trick on us, an’ sendin’ us to the wrong place. It’s 
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rather late in the season for a show of the kind, but 
the place we ought to go to is a potato-field. 7 

“‘What on earth are you talkin’ about?’ says I, 
dumfoundered. 

“‘Well,’ says he, ‘it’s a trick he’s been playin’. He 
thought a bridal trip like ours ought to have some sort 
of a outlandish wind-up, an’ so he sent us to this place, 
which is a meetin’ of chaps who are a-goin’ to talk about 
insec’s— principally potato-bugs, I expec’ ; an’ anything 
stupider than that I s’pose your boarder-as-was couldn’t 
think of, without havin’ a good deal o’ time to consider.’ 

“‘It’s jus’ like him,’ says I. ‘Let’s turn round an’ 
go back,’ which we did, prompt. 

“We gave the tickets to a little boy who was sellin’ 
papers, but I don’t believe he went. 

“‘Now, then,’ says Jone, after he’d been thinkin’ 
awhile, ‘ there’ll be no more foolin’ on this trip. I’ve 
blocked out the whole of the rest of it, an’ we’ll wind 
up a sight better than that boarder-as-was has any 
idea of. To-morrow we’ll go to father’s, an’ if the old 
gentleman has got any money on the crops, which I 
expec’ he has by this time, I’ll take up a part o’ ; my 
share, an’ we’ll have a trip to Washington, an’ see the 
President, an’ Congress, an’ the White House, an’ the 
lamp always a-burnin’ before the Supreme Court, 
an’—’ 

“‘Don’t say no more,’ says I j ‘it’s splendid ! ’ 

“So, early the nex’ day we goes off jus’ as fast as 
trains would take us to his father’s, an’ we hadn’t 
been there mor’n ten minutes before Jone found out 
he had been summoned on a jury. 

“‘When must you go ? ’ says I, when he come, lookin’ 
a-kind o’ pale, to tell me this. 

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u 1 Right off/ says he. 1 The court meets this mornin’. 
If I don’t hurry up, I’ll have some of ’em after me. 
But I wouldn’t cry about it. I don’t believe the case’ll 
last mor’n a day.’ 

“The old man harnessed up an’ took Jone to the 
court-house, an’ I went too, for I might as well keep 
up the idea of a bridal trip as not. I went up into 
the gallery, an’ Jone he was set among the other 
men in the jury-box. 

“The case was about a man named Brown, who 
married the half-sister of a man named Adams, who 
afterward married Brown’s mother, an’ sold Brown 
a house he had got from Brown’s grandfather, in trade 
for half a grist-mill, which the other half of was owned 
by Adams’s half-sister’s first husband, who left all his 
property to a soup society, in trust, till his son should 
come of age, which he never did, but left a will which 
give his half of the mill to Brown 5 the suit was 
between Brown an’ Adams an’ Brown again, an’ 
Adams’s half-sister, who was divorced from Brown, 
an’ a man named Ramsey, who had put up a new 
overshot wheel to the grist-mill.” 

“Oh, my ! ” exclaimed Euphemia. “How could you 
remember all that? ” 

“I heard it so often, I couldn’t help rememberin’ 
it,” replied Pomona, and she went on with her nar- 
rative : 

“That case wasn’t a easy one to understand, as you 
may see for yourselves, an’ it didn’t get finished that 
day. They argyed over it a full week. When there 
wasn’t no more witnesses to carve up, one lawyer made 
a speech, an’ he set that crooked case so straight that 
you could see through it from the overshot wheel 

1 Q£ 


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clean back to Brown’s grandfather. Then another 
feller made a speech, an’ he set the whole thing up 
the other way. It was j us’ as clear to look through, but 
it was another case altogether, no more like the other 
one than a apple-pie is like a mug o’ cider. Then 
they both took it up, an’ they swung it around be- 
tween them, till it was all twisted an’ knotted an’ 
wound up an’ tangled worse than a skein o’ yarn in 
a nest o’ kittens, an’ then they give it to the jury. 

“Well, when them jurymen went out, there wasn’t 
none of ’em, as Jone told me afterward, as knew 
whether it was Brown or Adams as was dead, or 
whether the mill was to grind soup or to be run by 
soup -power. Of course they couldn’t agree ; three of 
’em wanted to give a verdict for the boy that died, 
two of ’em was for Brown’s grandfather, an’ the rest 
was scattered, some goin’ in for damages to the wit- 
nesses, who ought to get somethin’ for havin’ their 
char-ac-ters ruined. Jone he jus’ held back, ready to 
jine the other eleven as soon as they’d agree. But 
they couldn’t do it, an’ they was locked up three days 
an’ four nights. You’d better believe I got pretty 
wild about it, but I come to court every day an’ waited 
an’ waited, bringin’ somethin’ to eat in a baskit. 

“One day, at dinner-time, I seed the judge a-stand- 
in’ at the court-room door, a- wipin’ his forrid with a 
handkerchief, an’ I went up to him an’ said, ‘Do you 
think, sir, they’ll get through this thing soon ? ’ 

“‘I can’t say, indeed,’ said he. ‘Are you interested 
in the case ? ’ 

“‘I should think I was,’ said I, an’ then I told him 
about Jone’s bein’ a juryman, an’ how we was on our 
bridal trip. 


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‘“You’ve got my sympathy, madam,’ says he, ‘but 
it’s a difficult case to decide, an’ I don’t wonder it 
takes a good while.’ 

‘“ISTor I, nuther,’ says I. ‘My opinion about these 
things is that if you’d jus’ have them lawyers shut up 
in another room, an’ make ’em do their talkin’ to their- 
selves, the jury could keep their minds clear an’ 
settle the cases in no time.’ 

“‘There’s some sense in that, madam,’ says he, an’ 
then he went into court ag’in. 

“Jone never had no chance to jine in with the 
other fellers, for they couldn’t agree, an’ they were all 
discharged, at last. So the whole thing went for 
nothin’. 

“When Jone come out, he looked like he’d been 
drawn through a pump -log, an’ he says to me, tired- 
like : 

“‘Has there been a frost?’ 

“‘Yes,’ says I, ‘two of ’em.’ 

“‘All right, then,’ says he. ‘I’ve had enough of 
bridal trips, with their dry falls, their lunertic asy* 
lums, an’ their jury-boxes. Let’s go home an’ settle 
down. We needn’t be afraid, now that there’s been a 
frost.’ ” 

“ Oh, why will you live in such a dreadful place ? ” 
cried Euphemia. “You ought to go to some place 
where you needn’t be afraid of chills.” 

“That’s jus’ what I thought, ma’am,” returned Po- 
mona. “But Jone an’ me got a disease-map of this 
country an’ we looked all over it careful, an’ wherever 
there wasn’t chills there was somethin’ that seemed a 
good deal wuss to us. An’ says Jone, ‘If I’m to have 
anything the matter with me, give me somethin’ I’m 
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used to. It don’t do for a man o’ my time o’ life to go 
changin’ his diseases.’ 

“So home we went. An’ there we is now. An’ as 
this is the end of the bridal-trip story, I’ll go an’ take 
a look at the cow an’ the chickens an’ the horse, if you 
don’t mind.” 

Which we did not, and we gladly went with her 
over the estate. 


198 


CHAPTER XVII 


IN ‘WHICH WE TAKE A VACATION AND LOOK 
FOE DAVID DUTTON 

It was about noon of a very fair July day, in the 
next summer, when Euphemia and myself arrived at 
the little town where we were to take a stage up 
into the mountains. We were off for a two weeks’ 
vacation, and our minds were a good deal easier than 
when we went away before, and left Pomona at the 
helm. We had enlarged the boundaries of Rudder 
Grange, having purchased the house, with enough 
adjoining land to make quite a respectable farm. Of 
course I could not attend to the manifold duties on 
such a place, and my wife seldom had a happier thought 
than when she proposed that we should invite Pomona 
and her husband to come to live with us. Pomona 
was delighted, and Jonas was quite willing to run our 
farm. So arrangements were made, and the young 
couple were established in apartments in our back 
building, and went to work as if taking care of us and 
our possessions was the ultimate object of their lives. 
Jonas was such a steady fellow that we feared no 
trouble from tree-man or lightning-rodder during this 
absence. 

Our destination was a country tavern on the stage- 
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road, not far from the point where the road crosses 
the ridge of the mountain-range, and about sixteen 
miles from the town. We had heard of this tavern 
from a friend of ours who had spent a summer there. 
The surrounding country was lovely, and the house 
was kept by a farmer, who was a good soul and tried 
to make his guests happy. These were generally 
passing farmers and wagoners, or stage-passengers 
stopping for a meal $ but occasionally a person from 
the cities, like our friend, came to spend a few weeks 
in the mountains. 

So hither we came, for an out-of-the-world spot like 
this was just what we wanted. When I took our 
places at the stage office, I inquired for David Dutton, 
the farmer tavern-keeper before mentioned ,* but the 
agent did not know of him. 

“However,” said he, “the driver knows everybody 
on the road, and he’ll set you down at the house.” 

So off we started, having paid for our tickets on the 
basis that we were to ride about sixteen miles. We 
had seats on top, and the trip, although slow,— for the 
road wound uphill steadily,— was a delightful one. 
Our way lay, for the greater part of the time, through 
the woods, but now and then we came to a farm, and 
a turn in the road often gave us lovely views of the 
foot-hills and the valleys behind us. 

But the driver did not know where Dutton’s tavern 
was. This we found out after we had started. Some 
persons might have thought it wiser to settle this 
matter before starting, but I am not at all sure that it 
would have been so. We were going to this tavern, 
and did not wish to go anywhere else. If people did 
not know where it was, it would be well for us to go 
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to look for it. We knew the road that it was on, 
and the locality in which it was to be found. 

Still, it was somewhat strange that a stage-driver, 
passing along the road every week-day,— one day one 
way, and the next the other way,— should not know a 
public house like Dutton’s. 

“If I remember rightly,” I said, “the stage used to 
stop there for the passengers to take supper.” 

“Well, then, it ain’t on this side o’ the ridge,” said 
the driver, “we stop for supper about a quarter of a 
mile on the other side, at Pete Lowry’s. Perhaps 
Dutton used to keep that place. Was it called the 
‘Bidge House’?” 

I did not remember the name of the house, but I 
knew very well that it was not on the other side of 
the ridge. 

“Then,” said the driver, “I’m sure I don’t know 
where it is. But I’ve only been on the road about a 
year, an’ your man may ’a’ moved away afore I come. 
But there ain’t no tavern this side the ridge arter ye 
leave Delhi, an’ that’s nowhere’s nigh the ridge.” 

There were a couple of farmers sitting by the driver, 
who had listened with considerable interest to this 
conversation. Presently one of them turned around 
to me and said : 

“Is it Dave Dutton ye’re askin’ about?” 

“Yes,” I replied, “that’s his name.” 

“Well, I think he’s dead,” said he. 

At this I began to feel uneasy, and I could see that 
my wife shared my trouble. 

Then the other farmer spoke up. 

“I don’t believe he’s dead, Hiram,” said he to his 
companion. “I heared of him this spring. He’s got 
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a sheep-farm on the other side o’ the mountain, an’ 
he’s a-livin’ there. That’s what I heared, at any rate. 
But he don’t live on this road any more,” he con- 
tinued, turning to us. “He used to keep tavern on 
this road, an’ the stages did used to stop fur supper 
—or else dinner, I don’t jist ree-collect which. But 
he don’t keep tavern on this road no more.” 

“Of course not,” said his companion, “if he’s a-livin’ 
over the mountain. But I b’lieve he’s dead.” 

I asked the other farmer if he knew how long it 
had been since Dutton had left this part of the 
country. 

“I don’t know fur certain,” he said, “but I know 
he was keeping tavern here two year ago this fall, 
fur I came along here myself, an’ stopped there to 
git supper— or dinner, I don’t jist ree-collect which.” 

It had been three years since our friend had 
boarded at Dutton’s house. There was no doubt 
that the man was not living at his old place. My 
wife and I now agreed that it was very foolish in us 
to come so far without making more particular in- 
quiries. But we had had an idea that a man who had 
a place like Dutton’s tavern would live there always. 

“What are ye goin’ to do?” asked the driver, very 
much interested, for it was not every day that he had 
passengers who had lost their destination. “Ye might 
go on to Lowry’s. He takes boarders sometimes.” 

But Lowry’s did not attract ns. An ordinary coun- 
try tavern, where stage-passengers took supper, was 
not what we came so far to find. 

“Do you know where this house o’ Dutton’s is?” 
said the driver to the man who had once taken either 
dinner or supper there. 


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“Oh, yes ! I’d know the house well enough, if I 
saw it. It’s the fust house this side o’ Lowry’s.” 

“With a big pole in front of it?” asked the driver. 

“Yes, there was a sign-pole in front of it.” 

“An’ a long porch?” 

“Yes.” 

“Oh, well ! ” said the driver, settling himself in his 
seat. “I know all about that house. That’s a empty 
house. I didn’t think you meant that house. There’s 
nobody lives there. An’ yit, now I come to remem- 
ber, I have seen people about, too. I tell ye what ye 
better do. Since ye’re so set on staying on this side 
the ridge, ye better let me put ye down at Dan Car- 
son’s place. That’s jist about quarter of a mile from 
where Dutton used to live. Dan’s wife can tell ye all 
about the Duttons, an’ about everybody else, too, in 
this part o’ the country, an’ if there ain’t nobody 
livin’ at the old tavern, ye can stay all night at Car- 
son’s, an’ I’ll stop an’ take you back to-morrow, when 
I come along.” 

We agreed to this plan, for there was nothing better 
to be done, and, late in the afternoon, we were set down 
with our small trunk— for we were travelling under 
light weight— at Dan Carson’s door. The stage was ra- 
ther behind time, and the driver whipped up and left 
us to settle our own affairs. He called back, however, 
that he would keep a good lookout for us to-morrow. 

Mrs. Carson soon made her appearance, and, very 
naturally, was somewhat surprised to see visitors with 
their baggage standing on her little porch. She was 
a plain, coarsely dressed woman, with an apronful of 
chips and kindling-wood, and a fine mind for detail, 
as we soon discovered. 


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“Jist so,” said she, putting down the chips, and 
inviting us to seats on a bench. “Dave Dutton’s folks 
is all moved away. Dave has a good farm on the 
other side o’ the mountain, an’ it never did pay him 
to keep that tavern, specially as he didn’t sell liquor. 
When he went away, his son A1 come there to live 
with his wife, an’ the old man left a good deal o’ furni- 
ter an’ things fur him ; but Al’s wife ain’t satisfied here, 
an’ though they’ve been here off an’ on, the house is 
shet up most o’ the time. It’s fur sale an’ to rent, 
both, ef anybody wants it. I’m sorry about you, too, 
fur it was a nice tavern when Dave kept it.” 

We admitted that we were also very sorry, and the 
kind-hearted woman showed a great deal of sympathy. 

“You might stay here, but we hain’t got no fit room 
where you two could sleep.” 

At this Euphemia and I looked very blank. 

“But you could go up to the house an’ stay, jist as 
well as not,” Mrs. Carson continued. “There’s plenty 
o’ things there, an’ I keep the key. For the matter 
o’ that, ye might take the house for as long as ye want 
to stay ; Dave’d be glad enough to rent it, and if the 
lady knows how to keep house, it wouldn’t be no 
trouble at all, jist for you two. We could let ye have 
all the victuals ye’d want, cheap, an’ there’s plenty o’ 
wood there, cut, and everything handy.” 

We looked at each other. We agreed. Here was 
a chance for a rare good time. It might be better, 
perhaps, than anything we had expected. 

The bargain was struck. Mrs. Carson, who seemed 
vested with all the necessary powers of attorney, 
appeared to be perfectly satisfied with our trust- 
worthiness, and when I paid on the spot the small 
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sum she thought proper for two weeks’ rent, she 
evidently considered she had done a very good thing 
for Dave Dutton and herself. 

“I’ll jist put some bread, an’ eggs, an’ coffee, an’ 
pork, an’ things in a basket, an’ I’ll have ’em took up 
fur ye, with yer trunk, an’ I’ll go with ye an’ take 
some milk. Here, Danny ! ” she cried ; and directly 
her husband, a long, thin, sunburnt, sandy-headed 
man, appeared, and to him she told, in a few words, 
our story, and ordered him to hitch up the cart and 
be ready to take our trunk and the basket up to Dut- 
ton’s old house. 

When all was ready, we walked up the hill, followed 
by Danny and the cart. We found the house a large, 
low, old-fashioned farm-house, standing near the road, 
with a long piazza in front, and a magnificent view of 
mountain- tops in the rear. Within, the lower rooms 
were large and low, with quite a good deal of furni- 
ture in them. There was no earthly reason why we 
should not be perfectly jolly and comfortable here. 
The more we saw, the more delighted we were at the 
odd experience we were about to have. Mrs. Carson 
busied herself in getting things in order for our supper 
and general accommodation. She made Danny carry 
our trunk to a bedroom in the second story, and then 
set him to work building a fire in a great fireplace 
with a crane for the kettle. 

When she had done all she could it was nearly dark, 
and after lighting a couple of candles, she left us, to 
go home and get supper for her own family. 

As she and Danny were about to depart in the 
cart, she ran back to ask us if we would like to bor- 
row a dog. 


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u There ain’t nothin’ to be afeard of,” she said, “for 
nobody hardly ever takes the trouble to lock the doors 
in these parts ; but bein’ city folks, I thought ye might 
feel better if ye had a dog.” 

We made haste to tell her that we were not city 
folks, and declined the dog. Indeed, Euphemia re- 
marked that she would be much more afraid of a 
strange dog than of robbers. 

After supper, which we enjoyed as much as any 
meal we ever ate in our lives, we each took a candle, 
and after arranging our bedroom for the night, we 
explored the old house. There were lots of curious 
things everywhere— things that were apparently so 
“old-timey,” as my wife remarked, that David Dutton 
did not care to take them with him to his new farm, 
and so left them for his son, who probably cared for 
them even less than his father did. There was a 
garret extending over the whole house, filled with 
old spinning-wheels, and strings of onions, and all 
sorts of antiquated bric-a-brac, which was so fascinat- 
ing to me that I could scarcely tear myself away from 
it ; but Euphemia, who was dreadfully afraid that I 
would set the whole place on fire, at length prevailed 
on me to come down. 

We slept soundly, that night, in what was probably 
the best bedroom of the house, and awoke with a feel- 
ing that we were about to enter on a period of some 
uncommon kind of jollity, which we found to be true 
when we went down to get breakfast. I made the 
fire, Euphemia made the coffee, and Mrs. Carson came 
with cream and some fresh eggs. The good woman 
was in high spirits. She was evidently pleased at the 
idea of having neighbors, temporary though they 
206 


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were, and it had probably been a long time since she 
had had such a chance of selling milk, eggs, and sun- 
dries. It was almost the same as opening a country 
store. We bought groceries and everything of her. 

We had a glorious time that day. We were just 
starting out for a mountain stroll when our stage- 
driver came along on his down trip. 

“Hello ! ” he called out. “Want to go back this 
morning ? ” 

“Hot a bit of it,” I cried. “We won’t go back 
for a couple of weeks. We’ve settled here for the 
present.” 

The man smiled. He didn’t seem to understand it 
exactly, but he was evidently glad to see us so well 
satisfied. If he had had time to stop and have the 
matter explained to him, he would probably have 
been better satisfied ; but, as it was, he waved his whip 
to us and drove on. He was a good fellow. 

We strolled all day, having locked up the house 
and taken our lunch with us, and when we came back, 
it seemed really like coming home. Mrs. Carson, with 
whom we had left the key, had brought the milk and 
was making the fire. This woman was too kind. We 
determined to try to repay her in some way. After 
a splendid supper we went to bed happy. 

The next day was a repetition of this one, but the 
day after it rained. So we determined to enjoy the 
old tavern, and we rummaged about everywhere. I 
visited the garret again, and we went to the old barn, 
with its mows half full of hay, and had rare times 
climbing about there. We were delighted that it 
happened to rain. In a woodshed, near the house, I 
saw a big square board with letters on it. I examined 
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the board, and found it was a sign,— a banging sign,— 
and on it was painted, in letters that were yet quite 
plain : 

FARMERS* 

AND 

MECHANICS* 

HOTEL 

I called to Eupbemia and told ber that I bad found 
the [old tavern sign. She came to look at it, and I 
pulled it out. 

lii Soldiers and sailors*!** she exclaimed. “That’s 
funny.** 

I looked over on ber side of the sign, and sure 
enough, there was the inscription : 

SOLDIERS* 

AND 

SAILORS* 

HOUSE 

“They must have bought this comprehensive sign 
in some town,** I said. “Such a name would never 
have been chosen for a country tavern like this. But 
I wish they hadn’t taken it down. The house would 
look more like what it ought to be with its sign hang- 
ing before it.” 

“Well, then,** said Euphemia, “let*s put it up.** 

I agreed instantly to this proposition, and we went 
to look for a ladder. We found one in the wagon- 
house, and carried it out to the sign-post in the front 
of the house. It was raining gently during these per- 
formances, but we had on our old clothes, and were so 
much interested in our work that we did not care for a 


208 


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little rain. I carried the sign to the post, and then, 
at the imminent risk of breaking my neck, I hung it 
on its appropriate hooks on the transverse beam of 
the sign-post. Now our tavern was really what it 
pretended to be. We gazed on the sign with admira- 
tion and content. 

“Do you think we would better keep it up all the 
time ? ” I asked of my wife. 

“ Certainly, 1 ” said she. “It’s a part of the house. 
The place isn’t complete without it.” 

“But suppose some one should come along and want 
to be entertained?” 

“But no one will. And if people do come, I’ll take 
care of the soldiers and sailors, if you will attend to 
the farmers and mechanics.” 

I consented to this, and we went indoors to pre- 
pare dinner. 


209 


CHAPTER XVIII 


OUR TAVERN 

The next day was clear again, and we rambled in the 
woods until the sun was nearly down, and so were late 
about supper. We were just taking our seats at the 
table when we heard a footstep on the front porch. 
Instantly the same thought came into each of our 
minds. 

“I do believe,” said Euphemia, “that’s somebody 
who has mistaken this for a tavern. I wonder whether 
it’s a soldier or a farmer or a sailor ; but you would 
better go and see.” 

I went to see, prompted to move quickly by the 
newcomer pounding his cane on the bare floor of the 
hall. I found him standing just inside of the front 
door. He was a small man, with long hair and beard, 
and dressed in a suit of clothes of a remarkable color 
—something of the hue of faded snuff. He had a big 
stick, and carried a large, flat valise in one hand. 

He bowed to me very politely. 

“Can I stop here to-night? ” he asked, taking off his 
hat as my wife put her head out of the kitchen door. 

“Why— no, sir,” I said. “This is not a tavern.” 

“Hot a tavern!” he exclaimed. “I don’t under- 
stand that. You have a sign out.” 

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“That is true/’ I said, “but that is only for fun, so 
to speak. We are bere temporarily, and we put up 
that sign just to please ourselves.” 

“That is pretty poor fun for me,” said the man. 
“I am very tired, and more hungry than tired. 
Couldn’t you let me have a little supper, at any rate? ” 

Euphemia glanced at me. I nodded. 

“You are welcome to some supper,” she said. 
“Come in ! We eat in the kitchen because it is more 
convenient, and because it is so much more cheerful 
than the dining-room. There is a pump out there, and 
here is a towel, if you would like to wash your hands.” 

As the man went out the back door I complimented 
my wife. She was really an admirable hostess. 

The individual in faded snuff-color was certainly 
hungry, and he seemed to enjoy his supper. During 
the meal he gave us some account of himself. He was 
an artist, and had travelled, mostly on foot, it would 
appear, over a great part of the country. He had in 
his valise some very pretty little colored sketches of 
scenes in Mexico and California, which he showed us 
after supper. Why he carried these pictures — which 
were done on stiff paper — about with him I do not 
know. He said he did not care to sell them, as he 
might use them for studies for larger pictures some 
day. His valise, which he opened wide on the table, 
seemed to be filled with papers, drawings, and mat- 
ters of that kind. I suppose he preferred to wear his 
clothes, instead of carrying them about in his valise. 

After sitting for about half an hour after supper, he 
rose, with an uncertain sort of smile, and said he sup- 
posed he must be moving on — asking, at the same 
time, how far it was to the tavern over the ridge. 

211 


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“ Just wait one moment, if yon please,” said Euphe- 
mia ; and she beckoned me out of the room. 

“Don’t you think,” said she, “that we could keep 
him all night? There’s no moon, and it will be a 
fearfully dark walk, I know, to the other side of 
the mountain. There is a room up -stairs that I 
can make ready for him in ten minutes, and I know 
he’s honest.” 

“How do you know it?” I asked. 

“Well, because he wears such curious- colored clothes. 
Ho criminal would ever wear such clothes. He could 
never pass unnoticed anywhere ; and being probably 
the only person in the world who dresses that way, he 
could always be detected.” 

“You are doubtless correct,” I replied. “Let us 
keep him.” 

When we told the good man that he could stay all 
night, he was extremely obliged to us, and went to 
bed quite early. After we had fastened the house and 
had gone to our room, my wife said to me : 

“Where is your pistol?” 

I produced it. 

“Well,” said she, “I think you ought to have it 
where you can get at it.” 

“Why so?” I asked. “You generally want me to 
keep it out of sight and reach.” 

“' Yes ; but when there is a strange man in the house 
we ought to take extra precautions.” 

“But this man you say is honest,” I replied. “If 
he committed a crime he could not escape— his ap- 
pearance is so peculiar.” 

“But that wouldn’t do us any good if we were both 
murdered,” said Euphemia, pulling a chair up to my 
212 


RUDDER GRANGE 

side of the bed, and laying the pistol carefully thereon, 
with the muzzle toward the bed. 

We were not murdered, and we had a very pleasant 
breakfast with the artist, who told us more anecdotes 
of his life in Mexico and other places. When, after 
breakfast, he shut up his valise, preparatory to starting 
away, we felt really sorry. When he was ready to go, 
he asked for his bill. 

“Oh ! there is no bill,” I exclaimed. “We have 
no idea of charging you anything. We don’t really 
keep a hotel, as I told you.” 

“If I had known that,” said he, looking very grave, 
“I would not have stayed. There is no reason why 
you should give me food and lodgings, and I would 
not, and did not, ask it. I am able to pay for such 
things, and I wish to do so.” 

We argued with him for some time, speaking of the 
habits of country people and so on, but he would not 
be convinced. He had asked for accommodation ex- 
pecting to pay for it, and would not be content until 
he had done so. 

“Well,” said Euphemia, “we are not keeping this 
house for profit, and you can’t force us to make any- 
thing out of you. If you will be satisfied to pay us 
just what it cost us to entertain you, I suppose we 
shall have to let you do that. Take a seat for a min- 
ute, and I will make out your bill.” 

So the artist and I sat down and talked of various 
matters, while my wife got out her travelling stationery 
box, and sat down to the dining-table to make out the 
bill. After a long, long time, as it appeared to me, I 
said : 

“My dear, if the amount of that bill is at all pro- 
213 


RUDDER GRANGE 


portioned to the length of time it takes to make it 
out, I think our friend here will wish he had never 
said anything about it.” 

“It's nearly done,” said she, without raising her 
head, and in about ten or fifteen minutes more she 
rose and presented the bill to our guest. As I noticed 
that he seemed somewhat surprised at it, I asked him 
to let me look over it with him. 

The bill, of which I have a copy, read as follows : 


“ July 12, 187-. 

Artist, 

To the S. and S. Hotel and F. and M. House. 
To £ one supper, July 11, which supper consisted of: 


t? lb. coffee, at 35 cts 2 £ cts. 

“ “ sugar, “ 14 “ 1 “ 

£qt. milk, “ 6 “ 1 “ 

£ loaf bread “ 6 “ 3 “ 

£ lb. butter “ 25 “ 3£ “ 

£ “ bacon “25 “ 12£ “ 

t£ pk. potatoes at 60 cts. per bush. . . £§■ “ 

£ pt. hominy at 6 cts 3 “ 


27 ^ 

£ of total 09^r cts. 


To £ one breakfast, July 12 (same as 
above, with exception of eggs instead of 
bacon, and with hominy omitted), 

24 ^ 

£ total. . . . 08 t§- “ 

To rent of one room and furniture, for one night, 
in furnished house of fifteen rooms at $6.00 per 
week for whole house 05f “ 

Amount due. . . . 22££cts.” 

214 


RUDDER GRANGE 


The worthy artist hurst out laughing when he read 
this bill, and so did I. 

“You needn’t laugh,” said Euphemia, reddening a 
little. “That is exactly what your entertainment 
cost, and we do not intend to take a cent more. We 
get things here in such small quantities that I can 
tell quite easily what a meal costs us, and I have cal- 
culated that bill very carefully.” 

“So I should think, madam,” said the artist, “but it 
is not quite right. You have charged nothing for your 
trouble and services.” 

“No,” said my wife, “for I took no additional 
trouble to get your meals. What I did, I should 
have done if you had not come. To be sure, I did 
spend a few minutes preparing your room. I will 
charge you seven twenty-fourths of a cent for that, 
thus making your bill twenty-three cents— even 
money.” 

“I cannot gainsay reasoning like yours, madam,” 
he said, and he took a quarter from a very fat old 
pocket-book, and handed it to her. She gravely gave 
him two cents change, and then, taking the bill, re- 
ceipted it, and handed it back to him. 

We were sorry to part with our guest, for he was 
evidently a good fellow. I walked with him a little 
way up the road, and got him to let me copy his bill 
in my memorandum-book. The original, he said, he 
would always keep. 

A day or two after the artist’s departure, we were 
standing on the front piazza. We had had a late 
breakfast,— consequent upon a long tramp the day 
before, — and had come out to see what sort of a day it 
was likely to be. We had hardly made up our minds 
215 


RUDDER GRANGE 


on the subject when the morning stage came up at 
full speed and stopped at our gate. 

“Hello ! ” cried the driver. He was not our driver. 
He was a tall man in high boots, and had a great rep- 
utation as a manager of horses— so Danny Carson 
told me afterward. There were two drivers on the 
line, and each of them made one trip a day, going up 
one day in the afternoon, and down the next day in 
the morning. 

I went out to see what this driver wanted. 

“Can’t you give my passengers breakfast?” he 
asked. 

“Why, no ! ” I exclaimed, looking at the stage loaded 
inside and out. “This isn’t a tavern. We couldn’t 
get breakfast for a stage-load of people.” 

“What have you got a sign up fur, then?” roared 
the driver, getting red in the face. 

“That’s so,” cried two or three men from the top of 
the stage. “If it ain’t a tavern, what’s that sign doin’ 
there ? ” 

I saw I must do something. I stepped up close to 
the stage, and looked in and up. 

“Are there any sailors in this stage?” I said. 
There was no response. “Any soldiers ? Any farmers 
or mechanics ? ” 

At the latter question I trembled, but fortunately 
no one answered. 

“Then,” said I, “you have no right to ask to be 
accommodated ; for, as you may see from the sign, our 
house is only for soldiers, sailors, farmers, and me- 
chanics.” 

“And besides,” cried Euphemia from the piazza, 
“we haven’t anything to give you for breakfast.” 

216 


RUDDER GRANGE 


The people in and on the stage grumbled a good 
deal at this, and looked as if they were both disap- 
pointed and hungry, while the driver ripped out an 
oath which, had he thrown it across a creek, would 
soon have made a good-sized mill-pond. 

He gathered up his reins and turned a sinister look 
on me. 

“I’ll be even with you yit ! ” he cried as he dashed 
off. 

In the afternoon Mrs. Carson came up and told us 
that the stage had stopped there, and that she had 
managed to give the passengers some coffee, bread and 
butter, and ham and eggs, though they had had to 
wait their turns for cups and plates. It appeared that 
the driver had quarrelled with the Lowry people that 
morning because the breakfast was behindhand and 
he was kept waiting. So he told his passengers that 
there was another tavern a few miles down the road, 
and that he would take them there to breakfast. 

“He’s an awful ugly man, that he is,” said Mrs. Car- 
son, “an’ he’d better ’a’ stayed at Lowry’s, fur he had 
to wait a good sight longer, after all, as it turned out. 
But he’s dreadful mad at you, an’ says he’ll bring ye 
farmers, an’ soldiers, an’ sailors, an’ mechanics, if 
that’s what ye want. I ’spect he’ll do his best to git 
a load of them particular people an’ drop ’em at yer 
door. I’d take down that sign, ef I was you. Not 
that me an’ Danny minds, fur we’re glad to git a 
stage to feed ; an’ ef you’ve any single man that wants 
lodgin’, we’ve fixed up a room an’ kin keep him 
overnight.” 

Notwithstanding this warning, Euphemia and I 
decided not to take in our sign. We were not to be 
217 


RUDDER GRANGE 


frightened by a stage-driver. The next day our own 
driver passed us on the road as he was going down. 

“So ye’re pertickler about the people ye take in, 
are ye?” said he, smiling. “That’s all right, but ye 
made Bill awful mad.” 

It was quite late on a Monday afternoon that Bill 
stopped at our house again. He did not call out this 
time. He simply drew up, and a man with a big 
black valise clambered down from the top of the stage. 
Then Bill shouted to me, as I walked down to the gate, 
looking rather angry, I suppose : 

“I was a-goin’ to git ye a whole stage-load to stay 
all night, but that one’ll do ye, I reckon. Ha, ha ! ” 
And off he went, probably fearing that I would throw 
his passenger up on the top of the stage again. 

The newcomer entered the gate. He was a dark 
man, with black hair and black whiskers and mus- 
tache, and black eyes. He wore clothes that had been 
black, but which were now toned down by a good 
deal of dust, and, as I have said, he carried a black 
valise. 

“Why did you stop here?” said I, rather inhospi- 
tably. “Don’t you know that we do not accommo- 
date—” 

“Yes, I know,” he said, walking up on the piazza 
and setting down his valise, “that you only take sol- 
diers, sailors, farmers, and mechanics at this house. I 
have been told all about it, and if I had not thoroughly 
understood the matter I should not have thought of 
such a thing as stopping here. If you will sit down 
for a few moments I will explain.” Saying this, he 
took a seat on a bench by the door j but Euphemia 
and I continued to stand. 


218 


RUDDER GRANGE 

“I am,” lie continued, “a soldier, a sailor, a farmer, 
and a mechanic. Do not doubt my word ; I will prove 
it to you in two minutes. When but seventeen years 
of age, circumstances compelled me to take charge of 
a farm in New Hampshire, and I kept up that farm 
until I was twenty-five. During this time I built 
several barns, wagon-houses, and edifices of that sort 
on my place, and becoming expert in this branch of 
mechanical art, I was much sought after by the neigh- 
boring farmers, who employed me to do similar work 
for them. In time I found this new business so profit- 
able that I gave up farming altogether. But certain 
unfortunate speculations threw me on my back, and 
finally, having gone from bad to worse, I found myself 
in Boston, where, in sheer desperation, I went on 
board a coasting vessel as landsman. I remained on 
this vessel for nearly a year, but it did not suit me. 
I was often sick, and did not like the work. I left 
the vessel at one of the Southern ports, and it was not 
long after she sailed that, finding myself utterly with- 
out means, I enlisted as a soldier. I remained in the 
army for some years, and was finally honorably dis- 
charged. So you see that what I said was true. I 
belong to each and all of these businesses and profes- 
sions. And now that I have satisfied you on this 
point, let me show you a book for which I have the 
agency in this country .’ 7 He stooped down, opened 
his valise, and took out a good-sized volume. “This 
book,” said he, “is the 1 Flora and Fauna of Carthage 
County ; 7 it is written by one of the first scientific 
men of the country, and gives you a description, with 
an authentic woodcut, of each of the plants and ani- 
mals of the county —indigenous or naturalized. Owing 
219 


RUDDER GRANGE 


to peculiar advantages enjoyed by our firm, we are 
enabled to put this book at the very low price of three 
dollars and seventy-five cents. It is sold by subscrip- 
tion only, and should be on the centre-table in every 
parlor in this county. If you will glance over this 
book, sir, you will find it as interesting as a novel and 
as useful as an encyclopedia— ” 

“I don’t want the book,” I said, “and I don’t care 
to look at it.” 

“But if you were to look at it you would want it, 
I’m sure.” ' 

“That’s a good reason for not looking at it, then,” 
I answered. “If you came to get us to subscribe for 
that book, we need not take up any more of your time, 
for we shall not subscribe.” 

“Oh, I did not come for that alone,” he said. “I 
shall stay here to-night, and start out in the morning 
to work up the neighborhood. If you would like this 
book,— and I’m sure you have only to look at it to do 
that,— you can deduct the amount of my bill from the 
subscription price, and—” 

“What did you say you charge for this book?” 
asked Euphemia, stepping forward and picking up 
the volume. 

“Three seventy-five is the subscription price, ma’am. 
But that book is not for sale. That is merely a sample. 
If you put your name down on my list you will be 
served with your book in two weeks. As I told your 
husband, it will come very cheap to you, because you 
can deduct what you charge me for supper, lodging, 
and breakfast.” 

“Indeed ! ” said my wife ; and then she remarked 
that she must go in the house and get supper. 

220 


RUDDER GRANGE 


“When will supper be ready ?” the man asked, as 
she passed him. 

At first she did not answer him, but then she called 
back : 

“In about half an hour.” 

“Good,” said the man; “but I wish it was ready 
now. And now, sir, if you would just glance over this 
book while we are waiting for supper—” 

I cut him very short, and went out into the road. 
I walked up and down in front of the house, in a bad 
humor. I could not bear to think of my wife getting 
supper for this fellow, who was striding about on the 
piazza as if he was very hungry and very impatient. 
Just as I returned to the house, the bell rang from 
within. 

“Joyful sound ! ” said the man, and in he marched. 
I followed close behind him. On one end of the table, 
in the kitchen, supper was set for one person, and, as 
the man entered, Euphemia motioned him to the 
table. The supper looked like a remarkably good 
one. A cup of coffee smoked by the side of the plate ; 
there was broiled ham and a small omelet; there 
were fried potatoes, some fresh radishes, a plate of 
hot biscuit, and some preserves. The man’s eyes 
sparkled. 

“I am sorry,” said he, “that I am to eat alone, for 
I hoped to have your good company, but if this plan 
suits you, it suits me ; ” and he drew up a chair. 

“Stop!” said Euphemia, advancing between him 
and the table. “You are not to eat that. That is a 
sample supper. If you order a supper like it, one 
will be served to you in two weeks.” 

At this I burst into a roar of laughter. My wife 
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RUDDER GRANGE 


stood pale and determined, and the man drew back, 
looking first at one of us, and then at the other. 

“Am I to understand— f ” he said. 

“Yes,” I interrupted, “you are. There is nothing 
more to be said on this subject. You may go now. 
You came here to annoy us, knowing that we did not 
entertain travellers, and now you see what you have 
made by it ; ” and I opened the door. 

The man evidently thought that a reply was not 
necessary, and he walked out without a word. Taking 
up his valise, which he had put in the hall, he asked 
if there was any public house near by. 

“ETo,” I said, “but there is a farm-house, a short 
distance down the road, where they will be glad to 
have you.” Down the road he went to Mrs. Car- 
son’s. I am sorry to say that he sold her a “Flora 
and Fauna ” before he went to bed that night. 

We were much amused at the termination of this 
affair, and I became, if possible, a still greater admirer 
of Eupliemia’s talents for management. But we both 
agreed that it would not do to keep up the sign any 
longer. We could not tell when the irate driver might 
not pounce down upon us with a customer. 

“But I hate to take it down,” said Euphemia, “it 
looks so much like a surrender.” 

“Do not trouble yourself,” said I. “I have an idea.” 

The next morning I went down to Danny Carson’s 
little shop,— he was a wheelwright as well as a farmer, 
and I got from him two pots of paint, one black 
and one white, and some brushes. I took down our 
sign, and painted out the old lettering, and, instead of 
it, I painted, in bold and somewhat regular characters, 
new names for our tavern. 


222 


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On one side of the sign I painted : 

SOAP-MAKERS* 

AND 

BOOKBINDERS* 

HOTEL 

And on the other side : 

UPHOLSTERERS* 

AND 

DENTISTS* 

HOUSE 

“Now, then,** I said, “I don’t believe any of those 
people will be travelling along the road while we are 
here, or, at any rate, they won’t want to stop.’* 

We admired this sign very much, and sat on the 
piazza that afternoon to see how it would strike Bill 
as he passed by. It seemed to strike him pretty hard, 
for he gazed with all his eyes at one side of it as he 
approached, and then, as he passed it, he actually 
pulled up to read the other side. 

“All right ! ** he called out, as he drove off. “All 
right ! All right ! ” 

Euphemia didn’t like the way he said “all right.” 
It seemed to her, she said, as if he intended to do some- 
thing which would be all right for him, but not at all 
for us. I saw she was nervous about it, for that even- 
ing she began to ask me questions about the travelling 
propensities of soap-makers, upholsterers, and dentists. 

“Do not think anything more about that, my dear,” 
I said. “I will take the sign down in the morning. 
We are here to enjoy ourselves, and not to be worried.” 

“And yet,” said she, “it would worry me to think 
that that driver frightened us into taking down the 
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sign. I tell you what I wish you would do. Paint 
out those names, and let me make a sign. Then I 
promise you I shall not be worried.” 

The next day, therefore, I took down the sign and 
painted out my inscriptions. It was a good deal of 
trouble, for my letters were fresh ; but as it was a 
rainy day, I had plenty of time, and succeeded tolerably 
well. Then I gave Euphemia the black-paint pot and 
the freedom of the sign. 

I went down to the creek to try a little fishing in 
wet weather, and when I returned the new sign was 
done. On one side it read : 

FLIES* 

AND 

WASPS* 

HOTEL 

On the other : 

HUNDRED -LEGGKERS* 

AND 

RED-ANTS* 

HOUSE 

“You see,** said Euphemia, “if any individuals men- 
tioned thereon apply for accommodation, we can say 
we are full.** This sign hung triumphantly for several 
days, when, one morning, just as we had finished 
breakfast, we were surprised to hear the stage stop at 
the door, and before we could go out to see who had 
arrived, into the room came our own stage-driver, as 
we used to call him. He had actually left his team 
to come to see us. 

“I just thought I’d stop an* tell ye,** said he, “that 
ef ye don’t look out, Bill *11 get ye inter trouble. He’s 
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bound to git the best o’ ye, an’ I heared this morning 
at Lowry’s, that he’s a-goin’ to bring the county clerk 
up here to-morrow, to see about yer license fur keepin’ 
a hotel. He says ye keep changin’ yer signs, but that 
don’t differ to him, for he kin prove ye’ve kept trav- 
ellers overnight, an’ ef ye haven’t got no license he’ll 
make the county clerk come down on ye heavy, I’m 
sure o’ that, fur I know Bill. An’ so, I thought I’d 
stop an’ tell ye.” 

I thanked him, and admitted that this was a rather 
serious view of the case. Euphemia pondered a mo- 
ment. Then said she : 

“I don’t see why we should stay here any longer. 
It’s going to rain again, and our vacation is up to- 
morrow, anyway. Could you wait a short time, while 
we pack up ? ” she said to the driver. 

“Oh, yes ! ” he replied. “I kin wait, as well as not. 
I’ve only got one passenger, an’ he’s on top, a-holdin’ 
the horses. He ain’t in any hurry, I know, an’ I’m 
ahead o’ time.” 

In less than twenty minutes we had packed our 
trunk, locked up the house, and were in the stage ; 
as we drove away we cast a last admiring look at 
Euphemia’s sign, slowly swinging in the wind. I 
would much like to know if it is swinging there yet. 
I feel certain there has been no lack of custom. 

We stopped at Mrs. Carson’s, paid her what we owed 
her, and engaged her to go up to the tavern and put 
things in order. She was very sorry we were going, 
but hoped we would come back again some other 
summer. We said that it was quite possible that we 
might do so, but that next time we did not think 
we would try to have a tavern of our own. 

225 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE BABY AT RUDDER GRANGE 

For some reason, not altogether understood by me, 
there seemed to be a continued series of new develop- 
ments at our home. I had supposed, when the events 
spoken of in the last chapter had settled down to 
their proper places in our little history, that our life 
would flow on in an even, commonplace way, with few 
or no incidents worthy of being recorded. But this 
did not prove to be the case. After a time, the uni- 
formity and quiet of our existence was considerably 
disturbed. 

This disturbance was caused by a baby ; not a rude, 
imperious baby, but a child who was generally of a 
quiet and orderly turn of mind. But it disarranged 
all our plans, all our habits, all the ordinary disposi- 
tion of things. 

It was in the summer-time, during my vacation, 
that it began to exert its full influence upon us. A 
more unfortunate season could not have been selected. 
At first I may say that it did not exert its full influ- 
ence upon me. I was away during the day, and in 
the evening its influence was not exerted to any great 
extent upon anybody. As I have said, its habits 
were exceedingly orderly. But during my vacation 
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the things came to pass which have made this chapter 
necessary. 

I did not intend taking a trip. As in a former 
vacation, I proposed staying at home and enjoying 
those delights of the country which my business in 
town did not allow me to enjoy in the working weeks 
and months of the year. I had no intention of camp- 
ing out, or of doing anything of that kind, but many 
were the trips, rides, and excursions I had planned. 

I found, however, that if I enjoyed myself in this 
wise, I must do it, for the most part, alone. It was 
not that Euphemia could not go with me— there was 
really nothing to prevent ; it was simply that she had 
lost, for the time, her interest in everything except 
that baby. 

She wanted me to be happy, to amuse myself, to 
take exercise, to do whatever I thought was pleasant ; 
but she herself was so much engrossed with the child 
that she was often ignorant of what I intended to do, 
or had done. She thought she was listening to what 
I said to her, but in reality she was occupied, mind 
and body, with the baby, or listening for some sound 
which should indicate that she ought to go and be 
occupied with it. 

I would often say to her : “Why can’t you let 
Pomona attend to it? You surely need not give up 
your whole time and your whole mind to the child.” 

But she would always answer that Pomona had a 
great many things to do, and that she couldn’t at all 
times attend to the baby. Suppose, for instance, that 
she should be at the barn. 

I once suggested that a nurse should be procured, 
but at this she laughed. 


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“There is very little to do/’ she said, “and I really 
like to do it.” 

“Yes,” said I, “but you spend so much of your time 
in thinking how glad you will be to do that little, 
when it is to be done, that you can’t give me any 
attention at all.” 

“Now, you have no cause to say that,” she exclaimed. 
“You know very well— there ! ” and away she ran. 
It had just begun to cry ! 

Naturally, I was getting tired of this. I could never 
begin a sentence and feel sure that I would be allowed 
to finish it. Nothing was important enough to delay 
attention to an infantile whimper. 

Jonas, too, was in a state of unrest. He was obliged 
to wear his good clothes a great part of the time, for 
he was continually going on errands to the village, and 
these errands were so important that they took pre- 
cedence of everything else. It gave me a melancholy 
sort of pleasure, sometimes, to do Jonas’s work when 
he was thus sent away. 

I asked him, one day, how he liked it all ? 

“Well,” said he, reflectively, “I can’t say as I under- 
stand it, exactly. It does seem queer to me that such 
a little thing should take up pretty nigh all the time 
of three people. I suppose, after a while,”— this he 
said with a grave smile,— “that you may be wanting 
to turn in and help.” I did not make any answer to 
this, for Jonas was, at that moment, summoned to the 
house ; but it gave me an idea— in fact, it gave me 
two ideas. 

The first was that Jonas’s remark was not entirely 
respectful. He was my hired man, but he was 
very respectable, and an American, and therefore 
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might sometimes be expected to say things which a 
foreigner, not known to be respectable, would not 
think of saying, if he wished to keep his place. The 
fact that J onas had always been very careful to treat 
me with much civility caused this remark to make 
more impression on me. I felt that he had, in a meas- 
ure, reason for it. 

The other idea was one which grew and developed 
in my mind until I afterward formed a plan upon it. 
I determined, however, before I carried out my plan, 
to again try to reason with Euphemia. 

“If it was our own baby,” I said, “or even the child 
of one of us by a former marriage, it would be a dif- 
ferent thing, but to give yourself up so entirely to 
Pomona’s baby seems to me unreasonable. Indeed, I 
never heard of any case exactly like it. It is reversing 
all the usages of society for the mistress to take care 
of the servant’s baby.” 

“The usages of society are not worth much, some- 
times,” said Euphemia, “and you must remember that 
Pomona is a very different kind of a person from an 
ordinary servant. She is much more like a member 
of the family— I can’t exactly explain what kind of a 
member, but I understand it myself. She has very 
much improved since she has been married, and you 
know yourself how quiet and— and nice she is ; and 
as for the baby, it’s just as good and pretty as any 
baby, and it may grow up to be better than any of us. 
Some of our Presidents have sprung from lowly 
parents.” 

“But this baby is a girl,” I said. 

“Well, then,” replied Euphemia, “she may be a 
President’s wife.” 


229 


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“ Another thing/ 7 I remarked ; “I don’t believe 
Jonas and Pomona like your keeping their baby so 
much to yourself.” 

“Nonsense ! ” said Euphemia. “A girl in Pomona’s 
position couldn’t help being glad to have a lady take 
an interest in her baby, and help bring it up. And 
as for Jonas, he would be a cruel man if he weren’t 
pleased and grateful to have his wife relieved of so 
much trouble. Pomona ! is that you? You can bring 
it here now, if you want to get at your clear-starching.” 

I do not believe that Pomona hankered after clear- 
starching, but she brought the baby, and I went away. 
I could not see any hope ahead. Of course, in time 
it would grow up ; but then, it couldn’t grow up during 
my vacation. 

Then it was that I determined to carry out my 
plan. 

I went to the stable and harnessed the horse to the 
little carriage. Jonas was not there, and I had fallen 
out of the habit of calling him. I drove slowly 
through the yard and out of the gate. No one called 
to me or asked where I was going. How different 
this was from the old times ! Then some one would 
not have failed to know where I was going, and, in all 
probability, she would have gone with me. But now 
I drove away quietly and undisturbed. 

About three miles from our house was a settlement 
known as New Dublin. It was a cluster of poor and 
doleful houses, inhabited entirely by Irish people, 
whose dirt and poverty seemed to make them very 
contented and happy. The men were generally away 
at their work during the day, but there was never 
any difficulty in finding some one at home, no matter 
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RUDDER GRANGE 


at what house one called. I was acquainted with one 
of the matrons of this locality, a Mrs. Duffy, who had 
occasionally undertaken some odd jobs at our house, 
and to her I made a visit. 

She was glad to see me, and wiped off a chair for me. 

“Mrs. Duffy,” said I, “I want to rent a baby.” 

At first the good woman could not understand me ; 
but when I made plain to her that I wished, for a short 
time, to obtain the exclusive use and control of a baby, 
for which I was willing to pay a liberal rental, she 
burst into long and violent laughter. It seemed to 
her like a person coming into the country to purchase 
weeds. Weeds and children were so abundant in New 
Dublin. But she gradually began to see that I was 
in earnest, and as she knew I was a trusty person, 
and somewhat noted for the care I took of my live 
stock, she was perfectly willing to accommodate me, 
but feared she had nothing on hand of the age I 
desired. 

“Me childther are all a-goin’ about,” she said. “Ye 
kin see a poile uv ’em out yon in the road, an’ there’s 
more uv ’em on the fince. But ye nade have no fear 
about gittin’ wan. There’s sthacks of ’em in the place. 
I’ll jist run over to Mrs. Hogan’s wid ye. She’s got 
sixteen or siventeen, mostly small, for Hogan brought 
four or five wid him when he married her, an’ she’ll 
be glad to rint wan uv ’em.” So, throwing her apron 
over her head, she accompanied me to Mrs. Hogan’s. 

That lady was washing, but she cheerfully stopped 
her work while Mrs. Duffy took her to one side and 
explained my errand. Mrs. Hogan did not appear to 
be able to understand why I wanted a baby,— especially 
for so limited a period,— but probably concluded that 
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RUDDER GRANGE 


if I would take good care of it and would pay well for 
it, the matter was my own affair, for she soon came 
and said that if I wanted a baby I’d come to the 
right place. Then she began to consider what one she 
would let me have. I insisted on a young one— there 
was already a little baby at our house, and the folks 
there would know how to manage it. 

“Oh, ye want it fur coompany for the ither one, is 
that it?” said Mrs. Hogan, a new light breaking in 
upon her. “An’ that’s a good plan, sure. It must be 
dridful lownly in a house wid ownly wan baby. How, 
there’s one— Polly— would she do ? ” 

“Why, she can run,” I said. “I don’t want one 
that can run.” 

“Oh, dear ! ” said Mrs. Hogan, with a sigh, “they 
all begin to run very airly. How, Polly isn’t owld at 
ad, at all.” 

“I can see that,” said I, “but I want one that you 
can put in a cradle— one that will have to stay there 
when you put it in.” 

It was plain that Mrs. Hogan’s present stock did not 
contain exactly what I wanted, and directly Mrs. Duffy- 
exclaimed : “There’s Mary McCann — an’ roight across 
the way ! ” 

Mrs. Hogan said, “Yis, sure,” and we all went over 
to a little house opposite. 

“How, thin,” said Mrs. Duffy, entering the house, 
and proudly drawing a small coverlet from a little 
box-bed in a corner, “what do you think of that? ” 

“Why, there are two of them ! ” I exclaimed. 

“To be sure,” said Mrs. Duffy. “They’re tweens. 
There’s always two uv ’em when they’re tweens. An’ 
they’re young enough.” 


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“Yes,” said I, doubtfully, “but I couldn’t take both. 
Do you think their mother would rent one of them ? ” 

The women shook their heads. “Ye see, sir,” said 
Mrs. Hogan, “Mary McCann isn’t here, bein’ gone out 
to a wash, but she ownly has four or foive childther, 
an’ she ain’t much used to ’em yit, an’ I kin spake fur 
her that she’d niver siparate a pair o’ tweens. When 
she gits a dozen hersilf, and marries a widow gintleman 
wid a lot uv his own, she’ll be glad enough to be lettin’ 
ye have yer pick, to take wan uv ’em fur coompany 
to yer own baby, at foive dollars a week. Moind 
that.” 

I visited several houses after this, still in company 
with Mrs. Hogan and Mrs. Duffy, and finally secured 
a youngish infant, who, having been left motherless, 
had become what Mrs. Duffy called a “bottle-baby,” 
and was in charge of a neighboring aunt. It seemed 
strange that this child, so eminently adapted to pur- 
poses of rental, was not offered to me at first, but I 
suppose the Irish ladies who had the matter in charge 
wanted to benefit themselves, or some of their near 
friends, before giving the general public of Hew Dub- 
lin a chance. 

The child suited me very well, and I agreed to take 
it for as many days as I might happen to want it, but 
to pay by the week, in advance. It was a boy, with 
a suggestion of orange-red bloom all over its head, and 
what looked to me like freckles on its cheeks j while its 
little nose turned up— even more than those of babies 
generally turn — above a very long upper lip. His 
eyes were blue and twinkling, and he had the very 
mouth “fur a leetle poipe,” as Mrs. Hogan admiringly 
remarked. 


233 


RUDDER GRANGE 


He was hastily prepared for his trip, and when I 
had arranged the necessary business matters with his 
aunt, and had assured her that she could come to see 
him whenever she liked, I got into the carriage, and 
having spread the lap-robe over my knees, the baby, 
carefully wrapped in a little shawl, was laid in my 
lap. Then his bottle, freshly filled, for he might need 
a drink on the way, was tucked between the cushions 
on the seat beside me, and taking the lines in my left 
hand, while I steadied my charge with the other, I 
prepared to drive away. 

“ What’s his name!” I asked. 

“It’s Pat,” said his aunt, “afther his dad, who’s 
away in the moines.” 5 

“But ye kin call him ony thing ye loike,” Mrs. 
Duffy remarked, “fur he don’t ansther to his name 
yit.” 

“Pat will do very well,” I said, as I bade the good 
women farewell, and carefully guided the horse 
through the swarm of youngsters who had gathered 
around the carriage. 


234 


CHAPTER XX 


THE OTHER BABY AT RUDDER GRANGE 

I drove slowly home, and little Pat lay very quiet, 
looking up steadily at me with his twinkling blue 
eyes. For a time everything went very well $ but hap- 
pening to look up, I saw in the distance a carriage 
approaching. It was an open barouche, and I knew 
it belonged to a family of our acquaintance in the 
village, and that it usually contained ladies. 

Quick as thought, I rolled up Pat in his shawl and 
stuffed him under the seat. Then, rearranging the 
lap-robe over my knees, I drove on, trembling a little, 
it is true. 

As I supposed, the carriage contained ladies, and I 
knew them all. The coachman instinctively drew up 
as we approached. We always stopped and spoke on 
such occasions. 

They asked me after my wife, apparently surprised 
to see me alone, and made a number of pleasant ob- 
servations, to all of which I replied with as uncon- 
cerned and easy an air as I could assume. The ladies 
were in excellent spirits, but in spite of this there 
seemed to be an air of repression about them, which I 
thought of when I drove on, but could not account for, 
for little Pat never moved or whimpered during the 
whole of the interview. 


235 


RUDDER GRANGE 


But when I took him again in my lap, and happened 
to turn as I arranged the robe, I saw his bottle sticking 
up boldly by my side from between the cushions. 
Then I did not wonder at the repression. 

When I reached home, I drove directly to the barn. 
Fortunately, Jonas was there. When I called him 
and handed little Pat to him I never saw a man 
more utterly amazed. He stood and held the child 
without a word. But when I explained the whole 
affair to him, he comprehended it perfectly, and was 
delighted. I think he was just as anxious for my 
plan to work as I was myself, although he did not 
say so. 

I was about to take the child into the house, when 
Jonas remarked that it was barefooted. 

“That won’t do,” I said. “It certainly had socks 
on when I got it. I saw them.” 

“Here they are,” said Jonas, fishing them out from 
the shawl j “he’s kicked them off.” 

“Well, we must put them on,” I said ; “it won’t do 
to take him in that way. You hold him.” 

So Jonas sat down on the feed-box, and carefully 
taking little Pat, he held him horizontally, firmly 
pressed between his hands and knees, with his feet 
stuck out toward me, while I knelt down before him 
and tried to put on the little socks. But the socks 
were knit or worked very loosely, and there seemed 
to be a good many small holes in them, so that Pat’s 
funny little toes, which he kept curling up and un- 
curling, were continually making their appearance in 
unexpected places through the sock. But, after a 
great deal of trouble, I got them both on, with the 
heels in about the right places. 

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“Now they ought to he tied on,” I said. “Where 
are his garters ? ” 

“I don’t believe babies have garters,” said Jonas, 
doubtfully, “but I could rig him up a pair.” 

“No,” said I, “we won’t take the time for that. I’ll 
hold his legs apart as I carry him in. It’s rubbing 
his feet together that gets them off.” 

As I passed the kitchen window I saw Pomona at 
work. She looked at me, dropped something, and I 
heard a crash. I don’t know how much that crash 
cost me. Jonas rushed in to tell Pomona about it, 
and in a moment I heard a scream of laughter. At 
this, Euphemia appeared at an upper window, with 
her hand raised, and saying severely : “Hush-h ! ” But 
the moment she saw me, she disappeared from the 
window and came down-stairs on the run. She met 
me just as I entered the dining-room. 

“What in the world ! ” she breathlessly exclaimed. 

“This,” said I, taking Pat into a better position in 
my arms, “is my baby.” 

“Your— baby ! ” said Euphemia. “Where did you 
get it? What are you going to do with it? ” 

“I got it in New Dublin,” I replied, “and I want it 
to amuse and occupy me while I am at home. I 
haven’t anything else to do, except things that take 
me away from you.” 

“Oh ! ” said Euphemia. 

At this moment little Pat gave his first whimper. 
Perhaps he felt the searching glance that fell upon 
him from the lady in the middle of the room. 

I immediately began to walk up and down the floor 
with him, and to sing to him. I did not know any 
infant music, but I felt sure that a soothing tune was 
237 


RUDDER GRANGE 


the great requisite, and that the words were of small 
importance. So I started on an old Methodist tune, 
which I remembered very well, and which was used 
with the hymn containing the line, 

“Weak and wounded, sick and sore,” 
and I sang, as soothingly as I could : 

“Lit-tle Pat-sy, Wat-sy, Sat-sy, 

Does he feel a lit-ty bad ? 

Me will send and get his bot-tle ; 

He sha’n’t have to cry-wy-wy.” 

“ What an idiot ! ” said Euphemia, laughing in spite 
of her vexation. 

“ No, we ain’t no id-i-otses ; 

What we want’s a bot-ty mi’k.” 

So I sang as I walked to the kitchen door and sent 
Jonas to the barn for the bottle. 

Pomona was in spasms of laughter in the kitchen, 
and Euphemia was trying her best not to laugh at all. 

“ Who’s going to take care of it, Pd like to know? ” 
she said, as soon as she could get herself into a state of 
severe inquiry. 

“Some-times me, and some-times Jonas,” 

I sang, still walking up and down the room with a 
long, slow step, swinging the baby from side to side, 
very much as if it were grass-seed in a sieve, and I 
were sowing it over the carpet. 

When the bottle came, I took it, and began to feed 
little Pat. Perhaps the presence of a critical and 
interested audience embarrassed us,— for Jonas and 
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RUDDER GRANGE 


Pomona were at the door, with streaming eyes, while 
Euphemia stood with her handkerchief to the lower 
part of her face,— or it may have been that I did not 
understand the management of bottles, but, at any rate, 
I could not make the thing work, and the disappointed 
little Pat began to cry, just as the whole of our audi- 
ence burst into a wild roar of laughter. 

“Here ! Give me that child ! ” cried Euphemia, 
forcibly taking Pat and the bottle from me. “You’ll 
make it swallow the whole affair, and I’m sure its 
mouth’s big enough.” 

“You really don’t think,” she said, when we were 
alone, and little Pat, with his upturned blue eyes se- 
renely surveying the features of the good lady who 
knew how to feed him, was placidly pulling away at 
his india-rubber tube, “that I will consent to your 
keeping such a creature as this in the house ? Why, 
he’s a regular little Paddy ! If you kept him he’d 
grow up into a hod-carrier.” 

“Good ! ” said I. “I never thought of that. What 
a novel thing it would be to witness the gradual growth 
of a hod-carrier ! I’ll make him a little hod now, to 
begin with. He couldn’t have a more suitable toy.” 

“I was talking in earnest,” she said. “Take your 
baby, and please carry him home as quick as you can, 
for I am certainly not going to take care of him.” 

“Of course not,” said I. “Now that I see how it’s 
done, I’m going to do it myself. Jonas will mix his 
feed and I will give it to him. He looks sleepy now. 
Shall I take him up -stairs and lay him on our bed?” 

“No, indeed,” cried Euphemia. “You can put him 
on a quilt on the floor until after luncheon, and then 
you must take him home.” 

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RUDDER GRANGE 


I laid the young Milesian on the folded quilt which 
Euphemia prepared for him, where he turned up his 
little png nose to the ceiling and went contentedly to 
sleep. 

That afternoon I nailed four legs on a small pack- 
ing-box and made a bedstead for him. This, with a 
pillow in the bottom of it, was very comfortable, and 
instead of taking him home, I borrowed, in the even- 
ing, some baby night-clothes from Pomona, and set 
about preparing Pat for the night. 

This Euphemia would not allow, but silently taking 
liim from me, she put him to bed. 

“To-morrow,” she said, “you must positively take 
him away. I won’t stand it. And in our room, too.” 

“I didn’t talk in that way about the baby you 
adopted,” I said. 

To this she made no answer, but went away to 
attend, as usual, to Pomona’s baby, while its mother 
washed the dishes. 

That night little Pat woke up, several times, and 
made things unpleasant by his wails. On the first 
two occasions, I got up and walked him about, singing 
impromptu lines to the tune of “weak and wounded ; ” 
but the third time, Euphemia herself arose, and, de- 
claring that that doleful tune was a great deal worse 
than the baby’s crying, silenced him herself, arranging 
his couch more comfortably, and he troubled us no more. 

In the morning, when I beheld the little pad of 
orange fur in the box, my heart almost misgave me ; 
but as the day wore on my courage rose again, and I 
gave myself up, almost entirely, to my new charge, 
composing a vast deal of blank verse while walking 
him up and down the house. 

240 


RUDDER GRANGE 


Euphemia scolded and scolded, and said she would 
put on her hat and go for the mother. But I told her 
the mother was dead, and that seemed to be an obsta- 
cle. She took a good deal of care of the child, for she 
said she would not see an innocent creature neglected, 
even if it were an incipient hod-carrier, but she did not 
relax in the least her attention to Pomona’s baby. 

The next day was about the same in regard to in- 
fantile incident j but on the day after I began to tire 
of my new charge, and Pat, on his side, seemed to be 
tired of me, for he turned from me when I went to 
take him up, while he held out his hands to Euphemia, 
and grinned delightedly when she took him. 

That morning I drove to the village and spent an 
hour or two there. On my return I found Euphemia 
sitting in our room, with little Pat on her lap. I was 
astonished at the change in the young rascal. He was 
dressed, from head to foot, in a suit of clothes belong- 
ing to Pomona’s baby ; the glowing fuzz on his head 
was brushed and made as smooth as possible, while 
his little muslin sleeves were tied up with blue ribbon. 

I stood speechless at the sight. 

“Doesn’t he look nice?” said Euphemia, standing 
him up on her knees. “It shows what good clothes 
will do. I’m glad I helped Pomona make up so many. 
He’s getting ever so fond of me— ze itty Patsy, watsy ! 
See how strong he is ! He can almost stand on his 
legs ! Look how he laughs ! He’s just as cunning as 
he can be. And oh ! I was going to speak about that 
box. I wouldn’t have him sleep in that old packing- 
box. There are little wicker cradles at the store— 
I saw them last week ; they don’t cost much, and you 
could bring one up in the carriage. There’s the other 
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RUDDER GRANGE 


baby crying, and I don’t know where Pomona is. 
Just you mind him a minute, please ! ” And out she 
ran. 

I looked out of the window. The horse still stood 
harnessed to the carriage, as I had left him. I saw 
Pat’s old shawl lying in a corner. I seized it, and 
rolling him in it, new clothes and all, I hurried down- 
stairs, climbed into the carriage, hastily disposed Pat 
in my lap, and turned the horse. The demeanor of 
the youngster was very different from what it was 
when I first took him in my lap to drive away with 
him. There was no confiding twinkle in his eye, no 
contented munching of his little fists. He gazed up 
at me with wild alarm, and as I drove out of the gate 
he burst forth into such a yell that Lord Edward came 
bounding around the house to see what was the matter. 
Euphemia suddenly appeared at an upper window and 
called out to me, but I did not hear what she said. I 
whipped up the horse, and we sped along to Hew 
Dublin. Pat soon stopped crying, but he looked at 
me with a tear-stained and reproachful visage. 

The good women of the settlement were surprised 
to see little Pat return so soon. 

“An’ wasn’t he good? ” said Mrs. Hogan, as she took 
him from my hands. 

“Oh, yes ! ” I said. “He was as good as he could 
be. But I have no further need of him.” 

I might have been called upon to explain this state- 
ment, had not the whole party of women who stood 
around burst into wild expressions of delight at Pat’s 
beautiful clothes. 

“Oh ! jist look at ’em ! ” cried Mrs. Duffy. “An’ see 
thim leetle pittycoots, thrimmed wid lace ! Oh, an’ it 
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